Orphan Child
by SnowWhiteOwl
Summary: During the Christmas holidays of his first year, Harry discovers the Mirror of Erised. When he shows Ron, the two of them get into an argument. Feeling completely alone, Harry makes a rash decision that leaves him seriously hurt.
1. Chapter 1

_I don't own Harry Potter_

_Hey everyone! Here is my next story. It isn't the one I originally planned on writing, but I got stuck with the other one so I decided to try my luck with another one before going back to the first one. This story will be quite short, I think it'll have about 12,000 - 15,000 words. If you don't like Albus Dumbledore I recommend you not to continue reading, though. I know that he is by no means perfect, but I still like him, and this story will portray him in a positive light.  
>I'm not a native speaker of English, I hope you'll excuse my mistakes. <em>

_I hope you'll like it! And I'm happy about reviews._

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><p><span><strong>Chapter 1<strong>

#

Harry ran. He knew this was probably a bad idea, he knew that he might be caught by Filch or, even worse, Snape, but just now, he didn't care. The only thing he cared about was getting to the Mirror as fast as possible. To his parents.

Rounding a corner, Harry broke into a final sprint. There was the door! In only a few moments, he would see his mum and dad again! In his excitement, Harry forgot to close the door behind him. Carelessly, he threw the invisibility cloak (which hadn't been of much use anyway, running as he had) into a corner and advanced on the mirror.

"Mum! Dad!" he breathed.

As always, his parents, and all his other relatives that were standing behind the beautiful, red-haired woman and the bespectacled man with the unruly hair, smiled at him without saying a word. It didn't matter, though, all that mattered was that they were here, with him, and that there was no green light to take them away again.

Harry was now so close to the cold surface of the Mirror that his face was almost touching the glass. How he wished that he could join his family inside it! He sighed. He was pretty sure that this wasn't possible, but nothing would prevent him from staying with his parents all night, and the following night, and every single night after that one.

Just like he had spent the last three nights in the cold, unused classroom where the Mirror was deposited, actually. Ever since that disastrous night when he had taken Ron with him in order to show him his family.  
>Only that it hadn't worked. Ron hadn't seen Harry's family but only himself, himself and some stupid badges, cups and trophies. And when Harry had sighed and asked Ron to move aside so that he could see his parents again, as surely the house cup wasn't as important as family, the red-head had become angry. Not just peeved but furious. Ron had started to shout at Harry that he shouldn't be so selfish, that he had already had the mirror for himself for one whole night and that winning the Quidditch-Cup and being as good as your older brothers was just as important as family.<p>

Harry had backed away as soon as Ron had started to shout – he hated being shouted at. Uncle Vernon had enjoyed yelling and screaming at Harry, too, and normally it meant that he was in really big trouble and that he would spent the next few days locked up in his cupboard.

And now Ron was shouting, too (though he was not nearly as intimidating as his Uncle, Harry had to admit) and didn't even care that it was in the middle of the night and that he and Harry, two first-years, weren't supposed to be out of bed and would surely get in trouble should someone hear the noise and catch them.

Sure enough, when Ron had stopped screaming and only stared at Harry crossly, they could clearly hear footsteps that where approaching at an alarming speed. Ron's eyes had widened and Harry hadn't wasted any time and thrown the invisibility cloak over the two of them. Then, they had inched into a nearby corner, in case whoever was hurrying down the corridor decided to come into the room, careful not to make a sound.

Luckily, though, the footsteps had passed the room without so much as a pause and after another minute or so, Harry's heartbeat had started to slow down again.

He and Ron hadn't spoken while they waited until Harry deemed it safe enough to return to the Gryffindor common room, nor when they had finally re-entered the warm and cosy snuggery.

That had been four days ago and Ron still hadn't forgiven Harry for not understanding the importance of being important. At first, Harry had been determined not to apologize to his friend – he hadn't done anything wrong, he had only expressed his opinion and it had been Ron who had started the yelling that almost led to them being caught!  
>However, now his resolution was starting to waver. With Hermione being away for the Christmas-holidays, Harry had no one left to talk to. Sure, there were the twins, Ron's brothers, that had tried to engage him into a conversation a few times, but it just wasn't the same. And additionally, you could never be sure whether they only wanted to prank you and that talking was only a means to distract you – that were Fred and George, after all!<p>

Harry sighed. He really wanted his friend back. Even the teachers seemed to have noticed that something was amiss, at least this was what Harry had deduced from the curious glances they were giving him and Ron during meals.

Perhaps he should just go and tell Ron that he was sorry. It didn't matter who had been right or wrong, did it? Taking the blame for their row wouldn't be nearly as bad as losing his very first friend, Harry supposed. And it wasn't as if he had never taken the blame for things he hadn't done before - the Dursleys had made sure of that.

But somehow, the thought of apologizing to Ron made Harry feel sick in the stomach. He hadn't cared much about his relatives and the fact that they didn't love him – well, actually he did care, but he had long since mastered the art of suppressing his feelings – but Ron, Ron was different, Ron was his friend, Ron liked him. Did he?

A sole tear rolled down Harry's left cheek. He quickly wiped it away. Crying wouldn't make things better. Crying wouldn't make Harry feel less alone.

How he wished that his parents were here. How he wished to have a relative, a guardian, any adult who was there for him. Who didn't care whether he was famous or not, whether you was friend with their son or not... because this was the only reason Mrs Weasley had sent him the jumper, hadn't it? If Harry hadn't been friends with Ron and if Ron hadn't written his mother about the Dursley's refusal to give Harry any presents at all, Ron's mother wouldn't have feel obliged to knit an additional jumper. Pity. That was the reason Harry had received that gift.

It wasn't as if he didn't appreciate the effort she had probably put in the jumper. It must have taken days to finish it! Aunt Petunia had sometimes knit clothes for Dudley, so Harry knew that knitting was really hard work. And there simply wasn't a way magic could make this easier, he was sure of this.  
>However, despite the happiness Harry had felt when opening the package with the jumper and the home-made sweets, it had also opened Harry's eyes and he had realized something he had, until now, successfully avoided thinking about: He, Harry, didn't have <em>anyone<em> who really loved him. He was alone. And that thought was simply unbearable.

"Mum... Dad..." Harry whispered through the tears that, despite his best efforts, had started to leak from his eyes. Suddenly, he thought that he caught a slight movement in the Mirror and he whirled around. If someone had found him, if someone had caught him crying, if this someone was Snape... Harry had a difficult time to breath, but when his eyes scanned the room, he didn't see anyone. But then, who – or what – had moved?

Frowning, he turned around again. And then his heart stopped.

There, inside the Mirror was – was _he_! He, Harry, being hugged by both of his parents, being cuddled as he had seen his Aunt cuddling Dudley. Mesmerized, Harry watched his mother placing a kiss on the Mirror-Harry's forehead and his father caressing the boy's unruly hair, a huge grin on his face. They had exactly the same dark, messy hair and briefly, Harry thought that perhaps his father would be really proud that Harry had inherited his hair, that there might have been someone who wouldn't have been annoyed by his hair but who would have liked it.

A wave of despair threatened to drown Harry. It wasn't just his hair. It was – everything! He didn't want to be alone any longer, he _couldn't_ be alone any longer, he simply couldn't bear it, he would break, he would go mad, he would-

Harry gasped. Inside the Mirror, his mother had looked up, looked straight into his, the outside-of-the-Mirror-Harry's eyes. She smiled warmly at him, her look full of love, all the while keeping an arm around the Harry inside the Mirror.

"Mum!" he gasped. Without thinking, Harry dashed forward.

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><p>The noise from the Mirror of Erised breaking into thousands of tiny pieces, unable to withstand the sudden impact of the solid body of an eleven-year-old boy should have been enough to wake up the entire castle.<p>

But no one came.

If it hadn't been long after midnight, Harry might have been found earlier, but as it was, only a single teacher (plus Filch) were still roaming the castle, and both had been in completely different wings of the large building when Harry had jumped right through a thousand year old mirror.

A groan escaped the semi-conscious boy as he rolled on his back. Blood was seeping from several cuts on his face, neck and hands. The robe Harry had thrown over his pyjama before leaving the dormitory was torn to shreds and there were various places where the glass of the mirror had cut right through the fabric of his pyjama bottoms. Slowly, flecks of red started to form on the grey cloth, steadily growing .

"Mummy..." Harry mumbled, not able to really comprehend what was going on. He only wanted his mum. When he opened his mouth, a warm, iron-tasting liquid started to drip into his mouth. Gagging, he tried to spit it out, only to discover that moving his head hurt an awful lot.

The room was mess. Shards of the Mirror were scattered across it and the frame of the legendary artefact had only narrowly missed Harry's face when it had fallen to the ground. A few inches more right and the little boy might as well have been dead by now.

A small pool of blood had began to form next to Harry's head and another trail of the red liquid was slowly running down his throat, dripping onto one of the many silvery splinters he was lying on.

If Harry would have looked, he would have seen the face of a young, green-eyed and red-haired woman being reflected countless times, in each and every single shard that had once comprised the Mirror of Erised.

As it was, though, no one saw Lily Potter crying for her only child.


	2. Chapter 2

_I don't own Harry Potter_

_Thanks for all the reviews, favs and followers! Here is the second chapter..._

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><p><strong>Chapter 2<strong>

#

Harry drifted in and out of consciousness for several hours. Each time he woke up, he would try to get up from the cold and hard surface he was lying on, but then the pain would increase and his hands would slip away. Briefly, he wondered what the wet, slimy substance he seemed to be lying on was. At some point, Harry started to shiver as the fluid had drenched his clothes. He tried to call for help, as surely _someone _would hear him, but no one came.

It was an odd state of mind Harry was in.

Some times, he remembered the Mirror that was the reason why he wasn't in his bed in his cosy dormitory in the Gryffindor tower. And the flat and sharp pieces that were all over the place led him to the conclusion that something must have destroyed the Mirror, and likely hurt him, too, in the process. What he didn't get his mind around was what force could have possible smashed such a huge and magnificent Mirror to pieces.

Then, however, Harry was suddenly back in his cupboard, the darkness closing him in and making it difficult to breathe. Though this might also be due to the pain in his entire body. Desperately, he tried to prevent any sound of distress from escaping his mouth. If Uncle Vernon heard him, the man would be furious. Harry didn't remember what he had done this time, but he was sure that it must have been something freakish. His Uncle wouldn't have trashed him the way he obviously had for any of his normal misdeeds.

And again and again, there was the blinding green light, accompanied by cold, high laughter. And his mum. Harry saw his mum, he tried to move, tried to reach out for her, but the harder he tried, the farther she seemed to be away. Why didn't she stay? Didn't she see that Harry needed her? She was his mum, she couldn't just leave him alone!

Harry saw her mouth moving, heard her soft voice speaking to him soothingly, though he couldn't make out the actual words. And the green light was surrounding her, she practically glowed, she looked so beautiful but her expression was terrified -

"HARRY!"

A loud voice woke Harry up. He groaned when he noticed that the pain was still there. Hopefully, it wasn't bad enough to prevent him from cooking breakfast. The fact that Aunt Petunia was screaming for him to get up was a clear indication that he was allowed to leave his cupboard, despite whatever had happened yesterday.

"Yes, 'nt Petunia, 'm up," Harry croaked.

"Harry, child, what happened?"

This time, Harry noticed that this wasn't his Aunt's voice, nor any female voice at all. But it wasn't his Uncle either, so who - He gave a startled cry (which sounded more like a whimper, as for some reason he was quite hoarse) when suddenly, two strong arms lifted him up. He tried to fight whoever had taken him, but the pain that shot through his head and arms quickly thwarted his efforts.

"Ssh, it's all right, child, don't move or you'll hurt you further. Madame Pomfrey will fix you up again." the voice, that obviously belonged to the arms that were carrying Harry, said.

Madame Pomfrey. That name was ringing a bell...Hogwarts! How could he have forgotten something like this? He wasn't with the Dursley's any more but in a magical school. Though to be honest, it wasn't such a rare occurrence for Harry to wake up and taking a few moments until he remembered that he had left his relatives several months ago.

But if he wasn't with his relatives any longer, why was he hurting? Not even Snape would beat him hard enough to make Harry feel like he had done the morning after he had freed the Boa Constrictor, wouldn't he?

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><p>Albus Dumbledore had just settled down for breakfast when the youngest Weasley came careering into the Great Hall. Now, this was unusual. Normally, the boy (like all Weasleys except for Percy, really) was one of the last to appear for breakfast.<p>

Rather than sitting down at the Gryffindor table, however, Ron ran straight to the staff table. His eyes scanned the row of teachers that were already there and his expression fell when he realized that his head of house had yet to arrive. For a few moments, the boy stood there indecisively. Finally, however, he seemed to come to the conclusion that whatever was bothering him was too urgent to wait for Professor McGonagall to make an appearance and he approached the centre of the table where the headmaster had just added four sugar cubes into his cup of tea.

"Uhm, Professor Dumbledore, Sir?" Ron mumbled uncertainly.

"Yes, Ronald? What can I do for you this fine morning?" the headmaster inquired pleasantly.

"Uhm, I don't mean to bother you, but Harry... ehm, he wasn't in our dorm this morning, and his bed didn't look as if he had slept in it at all. I asked my brothers, but they haven't seen him either..." he trailed off.

"Have you thought about the possibility that he left the dorm early, perhaps in order to visit Hagrid or to fly for a bit?"

"Well, yeah, but I have already checked and he wasn't on the pitch and Hagrid was still sleeping. And well," Ron shifted uncomfortably and cast a quick glance at the other teachers who were already present. "His invisibility cloak is missing, Sir," he whispered.

This had Dumbledore frowning. The thought that Harry might use the cloak to leave the dorm after curfew hadn't occurred to him when he had decided that Christmas was a good opportunity to return the invisibility cloak to its rightful owner. If this had been James Potter, it would have been a different matter, but Harry? He refused to believe that the child was anything like his father (except for his hair, of course), no matter what Severus kept telling him.  
>No, surely Harry was much more like Lily, and Lily Evans wouldn't have broken the rules like this. Except for a very good reason, of course...<p>

But even if Harry had taken a stroll through the castle, surely he would have had the sense to return to Gryffindor tower before dawn? What was the reason for sneaking around under the cloak if he was perfectly entitled to roam the corridors after curfew had ended at 6 o'clock?

"Very well, Ronald, thank you for bringing the matter to my attention so quickly. I don't think you need to worry, though, but if Harry hasn't turned up by lunch I will send a few people looking for him. The castle can be quite overwhelming for someone who has only spend a few months living here. But I think we should grant your friend the opportunity to find his way back on his own, it would be a shame to have to assign him a detention only because he has gotten lost while exploring Hogwarts at an unusual time of the day." Dumbledore winked at the anxious looking boy in front of him.

Ron really didn't want to tell. But what else could he do if the headmaster didn't grasp the urgency of the situation? Ron wasn't stupid – he had noticed that Harry hadn't slept much ever since they had had that stupid row because of the stupid mirror, that Harry had left their dormitory every single night. He had noticed that each day, Harry was looking more and more exhausted and just plainly sad.

A few times, he had been about to tell Harry that he should stop going to the mirror as it clearly wasn't good for him, but then he had remembered that he and Harry weren't on speaking terms any more and he just couldn't bring himself to apologize for his outburst the other night. Rationally, Ron knew that it had been wrong to shout at Harry like this and he even admitted (if only to himself) that family _might _be more important than being Quiddich-captain, but still... Harry had hurt him, too, by implying that Ron's wishes weren't important! So why should he, Ron, be the one who made the first move towards reconciliation? It wasn't fair!

Now, however, it seemed that Harry was in trouble. And he, Ron, was the only one who knew were the other boy had likely gone. If he had only paid more attention to where Harry was leading him when he had shown him the mirror! But even though he had spent half an hour searching for the room, almost getting lost himself twice, Ron hadn't been able to track down the abandoned classroom.

"Uhm Professor Dumbledore, I think I might perhaps know where Harry could have gone..." Ron murmured uncertainly and the headmaster had to strain his ears in order to understand the boy's words.

"You do, my boy?" Dumbledore asked surprised, "then why don't you go and retrieve your friend? I'm sure Harry would appreciate it if it was you who interrupt whatever adventure he has stumbled into rather than a teacher." he twinkled at the red-headed boy, though the troubled expression of said child worried him slightly.

"I tried to, I really tried, and I didn't mean to get Harry in trouble, Sir, but the thing is – well, I might have forgotten in which room exactly that weird mirror was." Ron confessed, feeling mortified.

"What mirror, child?" the headmaster, now somewhat alarmed, inquired.

"Well, ehm, it was huge and had a showy, flashy frame. Harry found it in an old and dusty classroom when he ran away from Filch after searching the restri- I mean," Ron hurriedly amended, "he stumbled across it while exploring the castle. It was an accident, honestly!"

By now, Dumbledore had risen from his seat. He raised a hand to stop Ron's stuttering. "I think I know where Harry is, Ronald. I will fetch him and see whether he his all right. That mirror..." he trailed off. He knew all too well what the Mirror of Erised could do to someone like Harry – someone who had lost loved ones. That was the reason he had refused to tell his potion master what the ultimate protection of the stone would be, even though the young man had been quite adamant about knowing whether there was any real, infallible safeguard that would prevent Voldemort from getting the stone.

Ron looked at his headmaster in confusion. Until a few moments ago, the man had seemed completely unconcerned about whatever fate might have befallen Harry and now his expression suggested that finding the strange mirror had been a really bad thing.

Then, however, Ron shrugged. As long as Professor Dumbledore made sure that Harry came back so that Ron could stop worrying about his maybe-ex-best-friend and go back to being sulky about the other boy's lack of empathy for Ron's sore points, he didn't care.

He was about to follow the headmaster out of the Great Hall when the man stopped and turned around. "I will make sure your friend is all right and returns safely, Ronald. There is no need for you to accompany me, please just have breakfast."

For a few moments, Ron looked between the still rather empty Gryffindor-table and the headmaster indecisively. Then, however, his belly gave a loud rumbling and the decision was made. He might even get a sweet roll now that he was this early! And if Dumbledore himself took care of Harry, there really was no need to worry, was there?

It took only five or so minutes for Dumbledore to reach the classroom where he had deposited the mirror until he could find the time to transfer it into the dungeons where the Philosopher's Stone was hidden away. These few minutes were enough for his concerns to increase enormously, though.

He could clearly remembered how the Mirror of Erised had affected him the first time he had come across the artefact. Seeing his sister, seeing Ariana for the first time in more than half a century and then realizing that it was only a mirror image, that she wasn't real and that she would never return had probably been the second-worst day of his life.

And now, it seemed, Harry, a boy who had lost both of his parents when he had only been a year old had found the mirror.

Preparing to see the images of Lily and James Potter smiling at their only child from the inside of a cold piece of glass, the headmaster rounded the last corner.

The door to the unused classroom stood open.

Dumbledore gasped. "HARRY!"

Splinters of broken glass were scattered across the room. The frame of the ancient device lay on the ground. And only inches away from it, the motionless form of a small child was sprawled on the cold stone-floor. A puddle of red had formed next Harry's head.

For a heart-stopping moment, Dumbledore believed that Harry was dead. Then, however, a slight shiver ran through the boy's body and he mumbled something unintelligible. Harry seemed to try to get up from the ground but his hands slid away on his own blood.

The headmaster might be in shock but he hadn't survived numerous battles with various dark wizards by panicking once a situation seemed to get out of hand.

A grim expression on his face, Dumbledore banished the shards of the mirror into a far corner. Then, he scooped Harry up into his arms. The boy whimpered at suddenly being lifted from the ground, but the blood-loss together with several hours lying on the cold floor with only a flimsy pyjama and a shredded robe to protect him from the frost of the Scottish winter had severely marred his ability to fight against the firm but gentle grip of an adult.

Mumbling words that would hopefully soothe the distressed child, the old wizard made his way to the hospital wing.


	3. Chapter 3

_I don't own Harry Potter_

_I'm afraid I have lied to you... this story will definitely have more than 15,000 words. I still don't plan to make it a really long one, though, but I should probably stop making any predictions.  
>I couldn't resist putting this little tidbit about the wizarding plumbing-company into the story, though it doesn't have anything to do with the plot. I don't even know whether anyone will understand it, because sometimes my mind can be really weird.<br>_

_Hope you enjoy the chapter!_

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><p><strong>Chapter 3<strong>

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When the distressed headmaster with an apparently unconscious child in his arms rushed into the hospital wing, Madame Pomfrey wasted no time and pointed at the nearest bed.

"What happened?" she demanded, drawing in a sharp breeze when she noticed the copious amount of blood both on the boy and Dumbledore himself. A horrible suspicion formed in her mind. "This doesn't have something to do with that beast you are keeping locked up on the third floor, does it?" she whispered furiously, pointing her wand, which she had drawn to cast a diagnostic spell, at her employer.

Dumbledore raised his hands in order to placate the agitated medi-witch. "Harry – he fell through a mirror..." at least this was what he hoped had happened.

"The injuries are several hours old, headmaster!" Madame Pomfrey, who had by now started to cast her diagnostic-charms, shot back. "Do you really want to tell me that no one of his dorm-mates heard the noise of a breaking mirror right next to their dormitory in the middle of the night?"

"It didn't happen in the bathroom, Poppy. Harry seemed to have decided to make use of the holidays and explored the castle in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, he stumbled across an ancient mirror I had unwisely stashed away in an unused classroom until I could find the time to relocate it to its actual destination. I only found him minutes ago, and only because Ronald Weasley, Harry's friend, came to me during breakfast because he was worried about his friend's disappearance."

The medi-witch didn't reply but concentrated on the complicated spell that would allow her to tell how much blood the child had lost. Luckily, his condition wasn't life-threatening but nevertheless he would require several doses of blood-replenishing potion.

"His body temperature is far too low," Madame Pomfrey murmured when she received the results of yet another spell. She cast a warming charm on Harry. She couldn't bundle him up in a thick blanket as she normally would have done (she held the opinion that nature was far superior to even the most advanced spells), since she still needed to heal the numerous cuts that littered his body.

As carefully as possible, the medi-witch started to undress the small boy. Apparently, though, she wasn't careful enough as Harry – who had until now barely given a sign that he was aware what was going on – started to sob and protest and tried to pull away from her.

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><p>His head pounded as if he had run head-first into one of the castle's many stone walls. Additionally, it seemed to be filled with mud. The arms that had carried him had deposited him on something soft some time ago, and Harry was grateful for it. It had been really hard not to cry out in pain when whoever had found him had grabbed his arms at exactly that area that hurt most.<p>

Harry felt dizzy and slightly confused, but then a male voice somewhere above him mentioned a mirror he had apparently fallen through, and everything that had happened came back to him.

How could he have been so stupid? Jumping through a piece of glass – had he gone _mad_?If Madame Pomfrey and whoever had found him ever learnt about what he had done, they would surely declare him insane. And Ron – what would Ron think if he got wind of Harry's stupidity? Ron hadn't even been able to see his mum and dad, so how could he possibly understand what had driven Harry to _jump through a bloody mirror_?

Every hopes he had still entertained that one of them would apologize and that they would become friends again shattered. Ron wouldn't want to be friends with a lunatic.

But it had been his mum... and she had smiled at him. And – a sob escaped him just when a sharp pain shot through his upper body. Harry howled with pain and tried to get away from the hands that were peeling off his pyjama top.

"I'm sorry, Mr Potter, but we must get you out of your clothes. I cannot heal you otherwise," the medi-witch apologized and continued to yank on Harry's shirt – which adhered to his wounds.

Frantically, Harry shook his head. Medi-witch or not, he wouldn't allow that woman to tear off his shirt by pure force. Aunt Petunia had tried this, too, the morning after Dudley and his friends had been particularly vicious in their game of 'Harry Hunting'. Harry had been so exhausted, he had fallen asleep still in his clothes, and the next morning, his jeans were glued to his knees. When he had informed his Aunt about his predicament, she had unceremonious ripped the fabric away from Harry's left knee, but as the resulting scream had been loud enough to alert the neighbours, she had poured water on the other one and waited until the jeans had loosened enough so that it didn't hurt quite as bad when Harry had peeled it off.

Didn't Madame Pomfrey – who was, according to Ron, practically the same as a nurse – know such basic things?

"You have to wet the pyjama, than it will loosen and it won't hurt so much when you pull it off the cuts!" Harry admonished the woman.

Madame Pomfrey looked at her young patient doubtfully. "You cannot just put water on open wounds, Mr Potter."

"Yes," Harry stubbornly insisted, though his heart was beating madly. He wasn't supposed to argue with adults. But his body hurt enough as it was, he couldn't bear the thought of having to endure even more pain.

For a few moments, the medi-witch contemplated what to do. If they had been at St Mungo's, she wouldn't have hesitated to comply with the boy's wish – it wasn't as if she enjoyed causing him pain - but at Hogwarts? As far as she knew, the plumbing had never been refurbished after Gaunt&Partners, the first and only wizarding plumbing company, had installed it about one hundred years ago. The water might be clean enough when it came to showering or cleaning the floors, but to pour it into open wounds that were Merlin knew how deep?

No, she couldn't risk it.

"I know you grew up with muggles, Mr Potter, but Hogwarts is an ancient castle with rather old plumbing and the water is simply not clean enough to use it on open wounds. However," she raised a hand when it seemed that the child was about to interrupt her, "I can floo Professor Snape and ask him whether he happens to have some C-Hexidine potion in store-"

"Hexes potion?" Harry asked horrified. It was Snape, sure but surely not even he would use hexes as potion ingredients, would he?

"It's an antiseptic potion, similar to disinfecting agents in the muggle world, but much more potent. I don't normally keep it in the hospital wing, however."

Harry wasn't comfortable with the idea of letting Snape of all people see him in his current state, but if he wanted to avoid the pain from having his shirt ripped off his wounds, it didn't seem as if he had a choice.

* * *

><p>As all three people currently in the hospital wing had expected, Professor Snape wasn't pleased at all about his breakfast being interrupted. Dumbledore, who had taken over the task of flooing into the man's quarters, asking him for the potion, had been wise enough not to mention who exactly it was that required the C-Hexidine. But when the potion master stepped out of the fireplace five minutes later, about to reprimand the medi-witch for not making sure to keep <em>all <em>necessary potions in store, the first thing he saw was a green-eyed, messy-haired child sitting on one of the beds, eyeing him warily.

"Potter," Snape groaned, "what have you done this time?" Fully aware that the old coot had purposefully 'forgotten' to tell him that it was the boy-who-lived who required the potion, he cast a nasty look at the headmaster. Dumbledore returned his gaze, smiling apologetically.

"Uhm..." Harry replied, not at all sure what he should tell the dour man. He would make fun of him anyway, would he?

Snape took in Harry's dishevelled appearance. The state of his face alone was enough to almost make him cringe. Some of the countless cuts were very close to the boy's eyes, and the impressive bruising on his foreheads suggested that he had either run against a wall or gotten into a fight.

He didn't miss the countless cuts and scraps on his hands, and, if the state on his pyjama top was anything to go by, on his chest either. Inwardly, the potion master frowned. The boy might be a trouble maker, but what could he possibly have done that explained his current state? Draco Malfoy and most of the other Slytherin first-years were at home over the holidays, and he hadn't perceived any serious hostilities between the Gryffindors and either the Ravenclaws or the Hufflepuffs.

"Eloquent as ever, I see," Snape sneered when it became apparent that he wouldn't get an answer from the boy. "I assume you did something idiotic like chasing another troll, not caring for the consequences or the fact that you are an eleven year old, below average wizard that hasn't yet mastered the art of transfiguring a snail into a teapot."

Harry coloured when Snape reminded him that he was pants at transfiguration. "I didn't chase a troll!" he replied hotly, only half-aware of the fact that it probably wasn't a good idea to argue with the strict Professor who clearly hated him. His head still hurt rather fiercely.

"No?" Snape asked mockingly, "Then perhaps it was a Cornish pixie?"

Harry didn't know what a pixie was but he didn't care. "It was that stupid Mirror and my mum was in it and I didn't want to be alone any more and then I kind of lost it!" he yelled in frustration. How he hated Snape!

It was only when the room fell completely silent and Madame Pomfrey clapped a hand in front of her mouth that Harry realized what he had just admitted.

"I mean..." he stammered, trying and failing to find a credible excuse for what had practically been a confession that the broken mirror and his resulting injuries hadn't been an accident.

"What mirror exactly are you referring to?" Snape, who unsurprisingly had recovered first from Harry's admission, inquired.

"I don't know, it showed me my mum and dad but Ron couldn't see them. He only saw himself being a prefect and Quidditch captain and stuff like that. I have never seen my mum before and last night I really missed her and then it kind of happened... I didn't mean to destroy the mirror, I really didn't!" Harry implored.

"You have never seen your parents?" Dumbledore asked, sounding surprised. "Surely your aunt has shown you pictures and taken you to their grave?"

"My Aunt doesn't talk about my parents and I'm not allowed to ask questions," Harry said bitterly.

When Dumbledore opened his mouth, Madame Pomfrey cut him short. "Gentleman, while I agree that this is serious business that has to be addressed, the cuts Mr Potter sustained in this – this incident require healing. Therefore, I need to ask you to postpone this discussion until _after_ I have taken care of Harry's injuries."

"Of course, Poppy, I'm sorry," Dumbledore replied immediately. Motioning his potion master to follow him, he retreated from the bed to give the medi-witch space to work.

"All right, Mr Potter," Madame Pomfrey addressed Harry, who was eyeing her wand warily, "first of all I will wet your shirt with potion so that it can soak in while I cast a spell that will show me whether there are any splinters of that mirror embedded in your skin."

Harry nodded, albeit reluctantly. It was his own fault, jumping through the mirror like this, wasn't it? He hissed when the potion made contact with his skin. It didn't exactly hurt, but the slight burning sensation was more than uncomfortable. He would rather endure the burning than the pain that would result from having his pyjama ripped off his skin by pure force, though.

The tingling sensation he then felt told him that Madame Pomfrey must have cast that spell while he had been distracted by the potion.

"Hmpf," Poppy Pomfrey huffed. Blue smoke was rising from several cuts on the child's body. Removing all the shards would take a while, as she couldn't simply perform a summoning charm to get them all. Well, she could, but it was rather risky as the pieces of glass might injure the boy even more.

Fortunately, the C-Hexidine had the same effect as water and after waiting for about ten minutes, the medi-witch was able to peel Harry's shirt off his skin with only minimal pain involved.

The next half an hour was tough for Harry, though, as Madame Pomfrey had to poke in every single cut that had blue smoke rising from it. Sure, she was a medi-witch, not a doctor, and so she could simply use her wand to remove a shard (once she had found one, that was), which was much less painful than picking in a wound with a pair of tweezers, Harry supposed, but still. When she worked at an particularly deep cut, Harry flinched badly and the medi-witch looked up, eyeing him compassionately.

"If it's too bad, I can call St Mungo's – the wizarding hospital – and ask whether it would be possible to have you transferred. They will be able to put you under anaesthetic so that you wouldn't feel any pain during the removal of all the glass."

Harry shook his head, wincing at he did so. He didn't like hospital. A few years ago, Dudley and his gang had beaten him up rather badly. He had thrown up several times and when his headache didn't decrease even a day after it had happened, his Aunt had taken him to a hospital in Surrey, claiming that it had been him who had started a fight with his cousin.  
>The nurses had looked at him disapprovingly, especially once Aunt Petunia told them that her son, Harry's victim, was currently staying with another relative in order to recover from the vicious attack. The doctor who had examined Harry hadn't been very nice either. In the end, the whole incident resulted in Harry having to stay in his cupboard for several days, as the doctor had claimed that Harry had a slight concussion and should stay in bed for at least three days.<p>

"No, I don't want to go to hospital," he told the medi-witch. Apart from his previous experiences with hospitals, he didn't want to leave Hogwarts. This was home, here were the only people who _might _like him, and he would do almost anything if it meant that he could stay.

Madame Pomfrey looked at her patient doubtfully. "If you think you can cope with the pain, all right. But there are quite a lot cuts I haven't treated yet."

After this, Harry tried even harder not to give any indication that he was in pain. It was quite challenging, as the medi-witch seemed to have decided to clean the deepest cuts last. A few times, he was about to tell the witch to stop and that he would go to that hospital, but the thought of what the doctors might say if they learned what Harry had done (especially considering the fact that in this world, he wasn't just an ordinary child but the famous boy-who-lived) prevented him from speaking up.

Only when Madame Pomfrey poked at long and deep cut next to his collarbone, he couldn't prevent a groan from escaping his mouth any longer. "I'm sorry," he cried out, fearing that now he would be forced to go to that hospital.

However, the medi-witch only looked up and, after seeing the fear in Harry's eyes, she just shook her head before resuming her work.

* * *

><p>After what seemed like an eternity, Madame Pomfrey told him that she had removed all the glass she could find and Harry almost burst into tears with relief. He tensed when the medi-witch told him that she would still need to heal the cuts (he didn't believe her claims that this part wouldn't hurt at all), but resolved on not making a fuss, now that he had gotten through what had hopefully been the worst of it.<p>

Indeed, healing the cuts wasn't nearly as bad as removing the shards of glass. All the medi-witch did was waving her wands a few times over Harry's upper body and the wounds magically closed itself. Only the faint white lines on his skin indicated that, just a few seconds ago, deep gashes had littered his body.

Stunned, Harry stared at the witch. Knowing such a spell would have certainly come into handy several times during the years he had severed as Dudley's punching bag.

Assuming that he was finished, Harry made a move to get up.

"Oh no, Mr Potter, you stay put!" Madame Pomfrey admonished the child, "you were hurt quite seriously and you will stay in the hospital wing at least for two days. Additionally, you still need to take several potions to make up for the blood-loss and to make sure that you don't get a cold from spending several hours lying on the cold ground."

With that, she turned around and went towards a cupboard at the other end of the infirmary. While he waited for her return, Harry led his eyes wander through the hospital wing. Next to the doors that led to the corridor, the headmaster and Professor Snape were having what seemed to be an agitated conversation. Harry strained his ears. He was quite certain that they were talking about him, as there was no other reason for them not to leave the wing, and if Harry himself was the topic of their discussion, surely he had the right to eavesdrop on their dispute, hadn't he?

However, the voices of the two men were too quiet for Harry to understand any words. He scowled. This was unfair! Adults shouldn't be allowed to talk about kids without letting the objects of their talk know about it. At least his family had always made sure to speak loud enough for Harry to understand every single insult even inside his cupboard.

"So, Mr Potter, if you would please take these potions – don't worry, this one," Madame Pomfrey pointed at a vial filled with red liquid, "will make steam come out of your ears. It won't hurt at all, it's only a side effect of Pepper-Up Potion, a draught to prevent and cure colds. The other one tastes even worse than the Pepper-Up, I'm afraid, but you need the Blood-Replenishing Potion and you'll probably have to take another dose in the evening."

Hesitantly, Harry took both vials from the medi-witch and sniffed on them. He had brewed enough potions to know that they couldn't probably taste anything else than horrible. Taking a deep breath, he drowned the red one.

After Harry had stopped coughing and the steam had decreased to a level that allowed him to once more make out his surroundings, he poured the dark brown content of the other jar into his mouth – and almost spit it out again as soon as the liquid made contact with his tongue.

With great difficulty, he swallowed the potion. This was disgusting! Harry resolved there and then on never again doing something that would result in him loosing blood and therefore having to take this awful draught.

Madame Pomfrey smiled at him sympathetically. "I know, it's not the most pleasant experience, but at least its not Skele-grow, believe me, that potion is worse."

Harry looked at the retreating back of the nurse horrified. He had no idea what this Skele-whatsit was but he would pay a visit to the library as soon as he was allowed to leave the infirmary so that he could hopefully avoid ever having to take it.

At least the Blood-Replenishing Potion seemed to have done its work, as Harry felt much less exhausted and tired than he had before. Had he really lost this much blood? He remembered the cold, sticky substance he had been lying on all night, but he hadn't realized how the blood-loss had affected his body. Sure, he had been unconscious – or whatever it had been – but that had only been because he had fallen on his head, hadn't it?

And most of the time, he hadn't been unconscious at all but only dreamed about his mum... his family... who he would probably never see again, now that he had destroyed the wonderful mirror...

He didn't have much time to dwell on that thought, however, as Professor Dumbledore seemed to have finished his talk with the potion master and made his way back towards Harry's bed. Snape, though, only gave Harry an unreadable look before leaving the hospital-wing with the customary billow of his cloak.

"Harry, my boy," the headmaster began once he had sat down on a freshly conjured, squishy purple armchair, "I don't think I have really understood what happened to you during the night that led to your extensive injuries. If you would be so kind to recount the events for the benefit of an old man?"


	4. Chapter 4

_I don't own Harry Potter_

_I know that some people won't like how I have portrayed Ron and Harry and Ron's friendship, but I seem to be one of the few people on this side who actually like Ron. This story won't focus on Ron, though, and I left it kind of open how their relationship will continue. _

_In case anybody hasn't figured out the little tidbit about "Gaunt&Partner" - since the founders (not even Slytherin) couldn't have known about indoor plumbing, I figured that whoever has equiped Hogwarts with pipes had to be a heir of Slytherin, since he obviously managed to connect the Chamber of Secrets to the conduit system. And since the Gaunt family has run out of money ages ago they would have to find some sort of occupation, wouldn't they?  
><em>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 4<strong>

#

Harry hesitated. Dumbledore sounded friendly, but that didn't mean that Harry wasn't in trouble. He had been out of the common room long after curfew and additionally, he had smashed what had likely been a valuable item. He would be lucky if he wasn't expelled.

"Am I... I mean, what is going to happen to me?" Harry finally asked, fearing the answer.

"Well, for now, you will have to stay in the infirmary. Madame Pomfrey informed me that you have a slight hypothermia as well as a concussion. Once she deems you well enough to leave, I fear that I have to assign you a detention for breaking curfew. I'm sure you and Hagrid will have a lovely aftern- I mean, I'm sure he has several tasks he could use your help with," the headmaster hurriedly amended.

"But..." Harry was at a loss for what to say. Wasn't he expelled? "I don't... I mean, I don't have to go back to the Dursley's?"

"Well, Harry, that was actually what Professor Snape and I were talking about while Madame Pomfrey took care of your injuries. While I agree with his opinion that the Dursley hardly are the ideal family for you to stay with, I fear that the protection living with them provides is too important to loose it. But don't worry, you don't have to stay with them for more than two or three weeks each summer. And I will certainly speak to them about how they have treated you and the memory of your parents. I-" but Harry's fearful voice interrupted Dumbledore.

"Don't speak to them, Sir, they will be so mad! They don't like wizards, especially after what Hagrid did to Dudley. They no longer make me stay in my cupboard but have given me a real bedroom, even though Dudley threw a tantrum when he had to clear out his second room. Please don't tell them anything, Sir, Uncle Vernon hasn't hit me once since I freed the snake and Hagrid has already told me that my mum and dad didn't die in a car crash but were murdered by Vol- you-know-you!"

Dumbledore had a hard time processing everything Harry had just said. When it seemed that the child wanted to continue his panicked babbling, he raised his hands. "One moment, Harry, lets start from the beginning. What did Hagrid do to your cousin?"

Harry blinked at the headmaster owlishly. Hadn't the giant told Dumbledore what had happened in the shack on the rock in the sea?

Dutifully, he recounted the events that had led to Dudley ending up with a pig tail and how his relatives had to take him to a hospital in order to have it removed. When he had finished, Dumbledore hid his face behind his hands and let out a groan.

"Oh Hagrid..." the old man mumbled before focusing once more on the young boy in front of him.

"All right, Harry, now, let's move on to the next thing. Your cupboard – what did you mean when you said that your relatives no longer made you stay there?"

"Uhm, it was kind of my bedroom... the cupboard under the stairs, I mean. It wasn't bad, quite cosy, actually, and I really like spiders so it didn't really matter. But when the first letter came they told me that I had to move into my cousin's second bedroom. I think they feared that someone would come and think badly about them because they made me live in a cupboard..."

Dumbledore had gotten pale during Harry's little speech, and for several minutes, the hospital wing was completely silent. Finally, however, the headmaster asked in a very quiet voice. "And your Uncle – you told me that he hit you once?"

"Well, yes, but it wasn't that bad. Dudley and his friends are much rougher when playing Harry Hunting, really! And Uncle Vernon only did it because I somehow vanished the glass of the tank of the snake and the snake scared Dudley. But I don't think it would have hurt him, the snake, I mean, it was a really friendly snake and even said 'Thank you' before disappearing."

If possible, Dumbledore had gotten even paler. "The snake talked to you?" he whispered.

"Uhm, yes..." Harry replied, unsure why the headmaster looked so shocked. He was a wizard, so of course he could talk to snakes!

"That's very... I didn't expect this, Harry. I must ask you not to tell anyone about this gift. It's very unusual, being able to talk to snakes, even for wizards, and if the wrong people learned about your ability... well, I don't think you would like the consequences."

"Is talking to snakes bad, Professor?" Harry asked disappointedly. As far as he was concerned, being able to speak with animals was awesome!

Now, Dumbledore smiled. "No, it's not bad, Harry, but it's really rare and unfortunately, people tend to fear the rare. As you are already more famous than you seem to be comfortable with, I would advise you not to speak about you ability to avoid even more curious stares."

Harry nodded. That sounded sensible.

"About those beatings," the headmaster's words pulled Harry out of his thoughts, "was this a one-time occurrence or did your uncle beat you repeatedly?"

Harry shifted uncomfortably. He didn't like talking about these sort of things, it made him feel like a crybaby. It wasn't as if anything really _bad _had happened to him! "He only did it when I had done something freakish – like turning my teachers hair blue or teleporting on the school-roof."

Dumbledore briefly closed his eyes.

* * *

><p>After he had had an early lunch (he had missed breakfast, after all), Madame Pomfrey told Harry to rest and, if possible, sleep for a bit. And even though Harry worried about Professor Dumbledore and whether he would keep his promise not to speak to the Dursleys without Harry's consent and whether there <em>really<em> would be no other repercussions from his nightly adventure (except his detention with Hagrid, of course), he quickly drifted off to sleep.

Several hours later, he woke up from loud voices coming from the entrance door of the hospital wing.

"But I _need _to see him! I'll be quiet and won't disturb him, I promise!" a male voice implored.

"Mr Weasley, Mr Potter is currently asleep and I would like it to stay that way. He had a rather stressful night and his body needs rest."

"But pleeease! Only for one minute!"

The medi-witch led out an exasperated huff. "But only for a minute, Mr Weasley!"

Something red dashed past the witch and a second or so later, Ron was standing next to Harry's bed, staring at him wide-eyed. "You told me he was asleep!" He exclaimed accusingly.

"Ah, Mr Potter, I trust you slept well?"

Harry started to nod but flinched when a sharp pain shot through his head. "Yes, Madame Pomfrey. Hey Ron..." he briefly glanced at his former friend but quickly turned his eyes away again. Why was Ron here?

"What happened to you, Harry?" Ron asked agitatedly, "you weren't in the dormitory, I looked for you practically everywhere but I couldn't remember where exactly that strange mirror was and so I finally told Professor Dumbledore that you were missing. He said he would search for you, but then he disappeared, too, and nobody seemed to know what was going on or where you were! Dumbledore wasn't at lunch either and I was about writing my dad because he works at the ministry and I thought that he might be able to tell the aurors that the two of you were missing, but then Snape – Snape, can you imagine? - he trapped me on my way to dinner – I thought he was about to murder me! - and told me that you were in the hospital wing..." Ron looked at Harry uncertainly.

"Uh..." was all Harry could reply. Apparently, Ron had worried about him. Did this mean that they were still friends? "Uhm, Ron, aren't you mad at me? Because of the mirror, I mean?"

Ron turned red. "Well, yeah, but that was before you went missing. I don't... I mean, I didn't really mean what I said the other night. I know family is important and everything, I just really like Quidditch, and Bill was head-boy and he's really, really cool!"

Not long after this, Madame Pomfrey chased Ron out of the infirmary, claiming that Harry (who, except for his headache, felt surprisingly well considering how he had looked like a few hours previously) needed to rest some more.

While he ate his dinner, Harry pondered on Ron and their friendship. During their short conversation, neither of them had apologized for what had happened a few days ago. But from Ron's behaviour, it was clear that he did feel bad about their row. Just as Harry felt bad about it. And without Ron's concern about his disappearance, it might have taken hours – days, even! - until someone had found Harry. The room with the mirror wasn't exactly in a much frequented part of the castle.

Harry still thought that it was Ron, and not him, who should apologize. But perhaps they could still be friends, even if neither of them apologized? Friendship wasn't about the other one being perfect in any single situation but about being there for each other when it really mattered, was it? And Ron had come to Harry as soon as he had learned that Harry was injured, not caring about a stupid quarrel.

* * *

><p>Two days later, Madame Pomfrey was just giving Harry his final check-up after which he would be allowed to leave the infirmary, even though he wasn't permitted to wander through the castle more than necessary for another few days, when Professor Dumbledore came through the doors.<p>

Harry hadn't seen the man since their conversation about his relatives and had even started to relax. If the headmaster had decided that one detention wasn't punishment enough but that only expulsion would be an appropriate response to Harry's crimes, he surely would have returned and told him, wouldn't he? So it wasn't really surprising that Harry's breath quickened when a tall figure with purple robes approached his bed.

"Hello, Harry," Dumbledore smiled at Harry brightly, "Madame Pomfrey informed me that you would be discharged today and I wondered whether you would be amenable to join me in my office for a cup of tea?"

Harry swallowed and nodded. It wasn't as if he had a choice, was it?

"Perfect. I will wait until Poppy is finished then." with that, the headmaster turned around and meandered towards the big windows that overlooked the grounds.

Numbly, Harry nodded when Madame Pomfrey told him not to overtax himself and to stay in bed or at least the common room for the remainder of the day. If he was expelled, he would be forced to sit on the Hogwarts Express the entire day anyway. He doubted that the Dursleys would allow him to laze about, though, concussion or not.


	5. Chapter 5

_I don't own Harry Potter_

_I have a slight problem with this story - I really don't know whether to leave it at about 25K words or whether I should continue writing and expand it to a novel-length fic. I don't even know whether I'd have the endurance to expand it. I have thought about finishing it after about 25K-30K words and then write a sequel another time, but unfortunately, this doesn't really work as I have to decide what to do with the story before continuing writing.  
>So perhaps I'll take a few weeks to think matters through (once I have posted everything I have written so far, one or two more chapters after this one), I hope you don't mind too much. I have another story I would really like to work on just now, so well, I can't really tell yet what I'll do.<br>_

* * *

><p><span><strong>Chapter 5<strong>

#

A few minutes later, Harry was sitting in a big, circular room in front of a magnificent desk, gulping down a glass of water. He didn't like this floo-thingy!

After he had overcome his initial shock that the headmaster had decided that only incineration was a suitable punishment for Harry's misdeeds, he had refused to set a foot into the fireplace that was located next to the medi-witch's office, even after Dumbledore had dis- and then reappeared in a flash of green flames, claiming that this was how the floo-network worked.

In the end, the headmaster had suggested that they could just walk to his office if Harry felt too uncomfortable about the floo, but the medi-witch was having non of it. According to her, Harry was still recuperating and in no condition to walk through half of the school. After a brief quarrel, the two adults had decided that the headmaster should simply carry Harry, which would hopefully reassure the boy that he wasn't about to get burned while at the same time prevent his head from getting shaken too much.

Harry had been mortified when Dumbledore had lifted him up, but when they had approached the fireplace he couldn't help but to bury his head in the man's robes. In retrospect, it had been a good thing that Harry had clutched the headmaster's shoulders fiercely enough to leave bruises, as it had turned out that travelling by floo was far worse than riding an average rollercoaster.

But at least he hadn't thrown up, though he did feel kind of dizzy. Just when Harry had come to the conclusion that wizards were weird – forbidding him to attend classes because of having suffered a concussion and at the same time making him travel by something as wonky and unsteady as the floo – Dumbledore cleared his throat.

"I know that you probably still fell a bit under the weather, so I'll try to make this quick," the headmaster began.

"So I _am_ expelled after all?" Harry blurted out. If he had to leave Hogwarts anyway, it didn't matter whether he was polite or not, did it?

"Expelled?" Dumbledore asked bewilderedly, "no, my boy, of course not! I thought we had cleared up that matter. You will have to serve a detention with Hagrid once you have completely recovered, but that's it. We don't expel people for breaking curfew." now the headmaster was twinkling at Harry.

Harry almost cried with relief. But if he wasn't expelled, what could Dumbledore possibly want to talk about? Apparently, the man had guessed what Harry was thinking, as even before he could voice the question, the old man continued.

"Ah, well, as we didn't really discuss the matter the last time we spoke, I hoped that we could use this opportunity to go over what exactly happened the night you acquired those injuries. However, there is something else I need to talk with you about, and I think it would be prudent to get this out of the way first – Harry, I'm so, so sorry!"

Harry blinked and eyed the headmaster blankly. He got the feeling that he had missed something important.

"Yes, I should probably start at the beginning..." Dumbledore mumbled before once more addressing the little boy in front of his desk. "I'm sure Hagrid told you that it was me who left you with the Dursleys the night after your parents were killed by Voldemort."

Harry nodded. Yes, the half-giant had told him about this.

"I had several reasons for placing you with your relatives, Harry. I wanted you to grow up safe, safe from followers of Voldemort who at that time were still at large and would surely seek to avenge their master's defeat. But I also thought that allowing you to stay with your family would ensure that you would have a happy childhood, something I doubted you would have if you grew up in the wizarding world, constantly being either lionised or despised because of what happened to you and your family on that fateful Halloween. I didn't know that Petunia had never gotten over her jealousy, I didn't know that she would hold you responsible for losing her sister, losing her twice, actually."

Dumbledore fell silent, apparently lost in memories. Harry, having no real idea what the man was on about, stayed quiet, hoping that Dumbledore would explain what he meant by all those vague words.

Eventually, the headmaster continued, a sad smile on his face. "I wouldn't have left you there if I had known how they would treat you, Harry. I hope that one day, you will be able to forgive me for putting you through all of this."

"All of what?" Harry asked, although he had a pretty good idea what Dumbledore meant. The Dursleys hadn't exactly been thrilled to have him in the house, had they?

"Harry, how your relatives treated you – it wasn't right! No child should grow up living in a cupboard and being forced to cook meals for their family while only getting scraps. I thought that they would accept you as a second son, but apparently, I have been wrong."

Harry's head was reeling. Had _he _told Dumbledore everything of this?

The headmaster had apparently noticed Harry's confusion, as he elaborated, "I paid your aunt a visit while you were in Poppy's care. She wasn't pleased to see me, not at all, and she was quite adamant about not telling me anything about your childhood. However, as a fairly powerful wizard, I have certain means that allow me to gather the necessary information even without resorting to potions or blackmail. You don't need to worry," Dumbledore hurriedly explained when a look of horror crossed Harry's face, "your relatives will not exact revenge on you for bringing the matter to my attention, I have made sure of this."

Harry wasn't convinced. In fact, he was quite sure that at least Uncle Vernon would hold Harry responsible for bringing yet another wizard onto their doorstep. Once the school-year was over, Harry knew that he would be in for it... he gulped audibly. He wasn't sure he would survive the upcoming summer. Why had he babbled? Why hadn't he kept quiet like he had always done in the past?

"You mustn't forget that we are wizards, Harry, and they are not." there was something in Dumbledore's eyes Harry had never seen before. It wasn't the usual twinkle. It was... rage? "And while I normally hold the belief that wizards shouldn't use their power on muggles, this is a special case. That day I placed you on their doorsteps I left a letter. I told your aunt why it was vital – for you _and_ her own family – that you stayed with blood-relatives.

"I asked her to treat you like a son, I reminded her that Lily – your mother, her sister – loved her despite what had happened between the two of them during their childhood, and that your mother would have done the same for Dudley if it had been your aunt and uncle who had been killed. But she didn't. She didn't show you the slightest bit of kindness. She estranged you from your own parents, the two people who have given their very life to protect to you, to allow you a chance of happiness. What you have seen in the mirror, child..." Dumbledore broke off.

Harry couldn't know that both he and Albus Dumbledore belonged to the very small group of people who saw one thing in the Mirror of Erised: their family.

The Mirror of Erised wasn't an artefact known by the ordinary wizard from the streets, but over the course of the centuries, there had been enough wizards that had studied or at least encountered the mirror so that by now, more than a dozen books had been written about it. Unsurprisingly, power, wealth and success, and in some cases even the death of an enemy, were the things most commonly seen by witches and wizards who gazed into the depths of the legendary mirror.

And even amongst those who had lost loved ones, seeing nothing else but the dead person was rare, more than rare. The few who did see their dead family or partner had either gone insane only weeks after finding the mirror or killed themselves in order to be reunited with the deceased. In fact, Dumbledore himself seemed to be the only one who had survived for more than a year after seeing a late member of his family inside the Mirror of Erised.

And he desperately hoped that Harry would be the second one.

There was the prophecy, yes. If Harry killed himself and Voldemort returned, their chances of victory were slim. But this wasn't the reason why Dumbledore hoped that Harry wouldn't go down the same road as so many others who had been left behind in the world of the living by their family.  
>No, it was because Harry of all people deserved happiness. He was supposed to grow up, make friends, find a partner, start a family of his own, get old, and not to join his parents only ten years after they had given their life to protect their son.<p>

Dumbledore had already failed James and Lily when he had not been able to protect them from Voldemort. And he had failed Harry when he had condemned him to grow up with sorry excuses for human beings. He wouldn't fail the Potter family a third time. He would make sure that Harry would be all right.

While the headmaster had been lost in thoughts, Harry had stayed quiet, observing the old man carefully. Apparently, he had done something to his relatives that would prevent them from beating the shit out of Harry once he returned for the summer. That was good, wasn't it? It meant that he didn't have to worry about the holidays and whether he would be able to come back to Hogwarts coming September. It would be greedy to hope to escape the Dursley's permanently...

Harry cleared his throat. "So... so they won't – won't be angry when I return for the summer?" he asked, not managing to keep the hope out of his voice entirely.

Dumbledore gave him a small smile. "No, Harry, they will not be angry and treat you adequately. Unfortunately, I cannot take you away from them permanently. The protection your staying with them provides you with simply is too valuable. However, you will not live at Privet Drive for more than two or three weeks each summer, and I will visit you ever second day to make sure that you are all right. Additionally, you should know that your aunt isn't your legal guardian any longer."

The last statement had Harry look up. "Then why do I have to stay with them?" he asked quietly.

That wasn't quite the question Dumbledore had been preparing to answer. But after everything he had learned about the Dursleys, he could certainly understand Harry's sentiments.

During the next ten minutes, the headmaster explained everything he knew (or at least suspected) about the blood wards to Harry, about how his mother's sacrifice had activated an ancient kind of magic that kept Harry from harm as nothing else could.

When he had finished, both the boy and the man were silent for several long minutes.

"She doesn't love me. Aunt Petunia, I mean." Harry finally stated, looking directly into Dumbledore's eyes.

The old wizard returned Harry's gaze, looking tired. "I know, Harry. I know now. I hoped your aunt had grown out of her jealousy for her sister, but apparently I have been wrong. However, for the blood wards it didn't matter whether she loves your or not. It's your mother's love that keeps you safe. All your aunt has to do is to voluntarily allow you to live in her house. It doesn't matter where in the house either." a pained expression flashed over Dumbledore's face when he remembered how he had demanded to see the cupboard.

Despite everything he had learned by then, he had still harboured some hopes that the 'cupboard under the stairs' was not, in fact, a cupboard, but that it was some sort of colloquial expression for a rather small room.  
>When Petunia had yanked open the door to the cubbyhole that originally must have been intended for storing cleaning supplies, the anger that had risen in him had led to him lose control of his magic. He hadn't bothered to repair the damage he had caused before returning to Hogwarts.<p>

And when he had seen the greying sheet of paper that had "Harry's Room" written on it in an untidy, childish handwriting, Dumbledore had felt like crying.

The headmaster became aware that Harry was still staring at him, a mixture of hope, betrayal and fear written clearly on his face.

"I know this is difficult, Harry, and I dearly wished there was a different possibility. But I'm afraid there isn't. Your life, Harry... you're in far more danger than you probably realize, even now that Voldemort is gone. However, I really don't think you need to worry about the Dursleys. I know for a fact that I haven't been the only one who has made a trip to Surrey during the last couple of days."

"Who else, then?" Harry asked. He noticed that some of the normal twinkling had returned to Dumbledore's eyes.

"Professor Snape, my boy. He was very displeased when he learned how your relatives treated your parents memory – your mother's especially."

Harry gapped. Snape had gone to the Dursleys? But Snape hated him! Surely he must be pleased about how his relatives had treated him? And why did the greasy git care about Harry's family?

"Professor Snape was very good friends with your mother, Harry. He even knew your aunt, as they grew up in the same neighbourhood. I think it was quite a shock for Petunia when I told her that I won't be the only wizard who will keep an eye on how you will be treated during the few weeks you will have to stay with them each summer. As far as I know, Professor Snape and your aunt despised one another with a passion."

Harry didn't know what to think. The knowledge that he and the dungeon bat had similar opinions both about his mum and his aunt felt odd. He would need to think about this before he could decided what to make of it.

Suddenly, Harry remembered something else Dumbledore had told him earlier. The Dursleys did no longer have custody over him! "Who is my new guardian, then?"

Dumbledore drew in a deep breath. He hoped that what he was about to reveal wouldn't alienate Harry further from him. "I am."

Harry's mouth fell open. _Dumbledore _was his new guardian?! But – he was the headmaster! And not only that, he had thousands of other jobs, he was really important in the magical world, probably even more important than the minister himself. He even had a chocolate frog card, for Merlin's sake!

What could someone like him want with a stupid little boy like Harry?

"This doesn't have to be a permanent arrangement, Harry," the headmaster tried to reassure the boy, squelching his own hurt. Harry was obviously in shock. He had known that the boy wouldn't be thrilled to have his headmaster as his guardian, yes, but he hadn't expected to see such a horrified expression on the child's face either. It wasn't an ideal solution – Harry needed a real family, not an old man – but Dumbledore had always believed that, for an old man, he was fairly good with children. But obviously, he had been wrong...

"Not- not permanent?" Harry stuttered, feeling completely numb. This was too much. The fear whom Dumbledore had chosen, the hope that had blossomed in his chest when the man had announced that he himself would be Harry's new guardian, and now the disappointment that the headmaster didn't really want him, that he only was his guardian because _no one_ wanted Harry. Not even his own family.

Dumbledore frowned. "Well, of course, if you want to, I would be delighted to become your guardian permanently. I just thought that you might prefer someone else, a real family. Apart from a brother, I don't have anyone else."

Harry swallowed. He _was _an eleven-year-old boy, yes, and during his time with the Dursleys Harry had learned that crying didn't solve your problems (and in some cases even created new ones, especially if your cousin found out what you were doing), but the conflicting emotions and thoughts that were running through his head were too much for him to handle.

Not really registering what he was doing, Harry rose from his chair. "I don't," he choked out, trying in vain to stop the flow of tears that were running down his face, "I don't want anyone taking me in! You only do it because the law says an eleven-year-old can't be on his own! You only do it because Voldemort hasn't managed to kill me! I don't want anyone taking care of me only because of who I am, I want someone who really wants me, not the stupid boy-who-lived! I just want my parents, I just want someone who loves me, please..."

"Oh Harry..." the headmaster had a hard time preventing his own tears from falling. His heart clenched painfully. If Harry only knew... if he only knew that Dumbledore loved him like a grandson. But even if he told him, Harry wouldn't believe it after everything that had happened. It didn't matter that with everything Dumbledore had done, he had only ever tried to keep Harry, to keep the Potters safe. The outcome of his decisions was disastrous, and that was everything that mattered.

"I wished he had just killed me," Harry said in a hollow voice.

"I know that I have done nothing to earn your trust, Harry. But please let me try. Let me prove that I _do _care for you. For _you, _for Harry, not the boy-who-lived." the headmaster whispered, knowing nothing else to say.


	6. Chapter 6

_I don't own Harry Potter_

_Well, here is the next chapter, hope you like it!  
>I think I have figured out how to continue with this story, even though this will result in me having to change the rating to 'T' - or at least I think so, I'm not really sure about all that rating-stuff since when I was 12 years old, I couldn't watch movies or read books my brothers, who are three years younger than me, had no trouble with. Anyway, I can't tell yet whether there will be 30K or 40K words, but the story won't become as long as 'Psychosis'. However, since I discovered that I really like writing about Dumbledore and Harry in a mentorguardian relationship I think about writing another one about the two of them, perhaps one where Harry is a few years older... once I have finished other projects, that is;)_

* * *

><p><span><strong>Chapter 6<strong>

#

Harry was glad that school wasn't in session, as it meant that he could hide in his bed or wander through the grounds the entire day, not having to talk to anyone. It helped that there weren't many Gryffindors who had stayed for the Christmas-holidays, and even the Weasley-twins stopped hexing snowballs to attack Harry wherever he went once Ron had told him to leave Harry in peace.

Harry was unsure whether the friendship between himself and the youngest Weasley would ever be the same again. Somehow, the events of the last few days seemed to have changed everything. He was grateful that Hermione would be back soon. Sure, she would certainly nag him about what had happened and everything, but at least she was a girl. Girls were supposed to be good with feelings, weren't they? Perhaps she could help him and Ron to sort out their friendship.

When Harry had left Dumbledore's office the day the man had told him that from now on, he would be his guardian, Harry had gone straight to the room where the Mirror had been.

Of course, it hadn't been there any more. Nothing in the dusty classroom suggested that this had been the place where Harry had seen his parents for the first time in more than ten years. Not even a single shard was left.

Well, he probably shouldn't be surprised. Dumbledore was bound to have cleaned up the mess Harry had made that night.

Dumbledore... Harry really didn't know how to feel about the man.

On the one hand, he was really nice, and a huge part of him just wanted to trust the grandfatherly wizard. But on the other hand, the headmaster hadn't cared whether Harry was happy with his so-called family or not. Harry wasn't a fool. He doubted that Dumbledore would have taken over guardianship so readily if it hadn't been for the fact that he was Harry bloody Potter.

But then, did this really matter? He _was _Harry Potter, after all, he ever had and ever would be. It wasn't as if anybody else did treat him as if he wasn't Harry Potter, so why should the headmaster?  
>And the man did seem to be sorry about what had happened to Harry. He could have been pretending to be upset about Harry's outburst, of course, but something in his gut told Harry that this hadn't been the case.<p>

He didn't yet know how good his gut-feelings were when it came to other witches or wizards, but with the Dursleys, Harry had avoided more than one sticky situation by listening to his instincts.

For the time being, Dumbledore would keep guardianship over Harry. They had agreed on this before Harry had fled his office. The headmaster had told him that if Harry changed his mind, that would be OK, that he would support Harry in anything he decided about his future as long as it wasn't too dangerous.

Not that Harry intended to ever tell the man if he did plan something dangerous.

Searching for the mysterious mirror wasn't dangerous though, was it? Sure, the headmaster had told him that it wouldn't be good for Harry if he dwelt on what he had seen, but what did Dumbledore know anyway?

Harry was determined to find the mirror, or at least what was left of it. He simply _needed _to see his parents again! He couldn't stand being alone. Not any more, not after what he had seen and felt those few nights he had spent with his mum and dad. Harry knew that they weren't real, that it was only a mirror image, but surely this was better than nothing? There was no hope that he would ever see his parents in reality, so finding out where the headmaster had put the shards of the mirror was the only way.

Harry was well aware that the mirror must have been valuable and probably ancient, and he was positive that Dumbledore wouldn't have simply thrown it into the rubbish bin, not even if Harry had managed to destroy it beyond repair.

And so Harry searched.

#

After two days, he had discovered several things that, under normal circumstances, he would have found rather interesting. Now, however, he didn't care.

Shortly after the beginning of his quest, when he was way down in the dungeons, Harry had stumbled across Professor Snape. He had been terrified what the man might do to him, as it was clear that Harry had been trying to gain entrance in what turned out to be Snape's private rooms. Much to his surprise, though, the Potion Professor stopped what Harry had thought would be quite a tirade immediately when he saw who it was that was trying to force open the door. Instead, Snape just eyed him with an unreadable expression before telling him to better leave the dungeons.

The next day, Harry encountered a very depressed ghost in a bathroom that was out of order. When he had seen the sign on the door, his heart had sped up. The classroom had clearly been out of order too, so perhaps...?

He didn't have any luck, though, and the ghost's whining led Harry to decide that a quick retreat would be judicious. As the tiles were slightly wet, though, he slipped and fell to the ground, barely avoiding hitting his head on one of the cracked sinks. Harry frowned. Someone had carved a tiny, but quite real looking snake in one of the pipes. It reminded him of the boa he had freed that day in London. He really hoped it was well, it had been a rather nice snake...

The annoying ghost brought Harry out of his musings and he quickly left the bathroom.

And then, shortly before he needed to make his way to the Great Hall in order to be on time for dinner (after Harry hadn't turned up for both breakfast and lunch the day before, Dumbledore had ordered him not to skip meals any more), Harry found himself in a room filled chock-full with mirrors.

One moment, he had contemplated whether the weird tapestry could possibly hide another secret passage and the next moment, a grinding noise behind him had caught his attention. When he had turned around, he had been face to face with a large red door he had completely overlooked when scanning this part of the corridor.

The room behind the door was huge, and the hundreds of mirrors led to it being well-lit despite only very few torches affixed to the walls.

But no matter how hard Harry searched, he couldn't find a mirror even remotely similar to the one he was looking for.

* * *

><p>Dumbledore let his eyes wander through the Great Hall, though he already knew that once again, Harry hadn't shown up for dinner. There weren't exactly many students who had decided to stay for the holidays, and the headmaster had looked up each and every time one of them had entered the hall, hoping to see a small, messy-haired child.<p>

From what he could tell, not even Ronald Weasley knew where his friend was or why he wasn't at dinner, or at least this was what Dumbledore deduced from the worried looks the boy gave the doors every now and then.

He had really hoped that he wouldn't have to make use of the charm he had cast on Harry when the boy had left his office two days ago, but it seemed that he didn't have a choice. At least he knew that the child wasn't in immediate danger. The monitoring charm would have alerted him if this had been the case.

Unobtrusively, he cast the spell that would activate the tracking charm and lead him directly to Harry's location. It worked similar to the Point-Me Spell, so unfortunately, he couldn't just apparate to the boy's side. Of course, such spells existed, too, but they would be an even more serious breach of Harry's privacy and Dumbledore hadn't wanted to risk losing the tiny bit of trust Harry might still have in him completely.

It seemed that the child was in one of the upper corridors of the castle. Just when Dumbledore had reached the landing of the fifth floor, a panting Harry came running down the stairs, almost crashing into the headmaster in his hurry to get to the Great Hall.

"Harry! There you are! Where have you been, child, you have missed dinner!" Dumbledore looked at Harry carefully. He appeared to be unharmed, but the dull look in his eyes revealed how he was feeling. The headmaster feared that he knew what the boy had done that had resulted in him losing track of time.

"Oh, hello, Professor Dumbledore," Harry replied, studying the ground. He knew he was late, but he hadn't expected the Professor actually going looking for him. But how had Dumbledore known that Harry was in the upper part of the school?

Dumbledore sighed. He didn't need to employ Occlumency to know what Harry was thinking. "I have cast a charm on you that allows me to pinpoint your location. It's something many parents do with their children. I promise you, I won't abuse it, I will only activate the spell when I think you might be in danger."

Harry scowled. He hated it when people did something like this without telling him about it. "Why didn't you tell me? And why did you think that I was in danger?"

"I wasn't sure whether you would agree to this measure, this is why I didn't tell you about it. I was, however, not prepared to risk your well-being, so I decided to cast the spell without your knowledge. Truth to be told, I hoped that I wouldn't need to use it anyway." he paused briefly. Harry didn't answer but the tension in his shoulders seemed to abate a little.

He still didn't like what the headmaster had done, Harry thought while hoping that the man would stop looking at him in such a peculiar way. But then, he supposed that at some level, he could understand Dumbledore. It had already been two times just this term that Harry had gotten in serious trouble...  
>And since nobody had ever really cared about Harry's well-being – well, he supposed his parents had, but he couldn't remember them, and the Dursleys had, at best, been indifferent about whether he was all right or not – Harry couldn't help but feel somewhat glad that finally, someone did care.<p>

"As for your other question," Dumbledore interrupted Harry's musings, "you promised me not to miss any more meals, and you aren't the type of person who breaks promises without a very good reason. Additionally, despite its fascinating properties, the Mirror of Erised can be dangerous, very dangerous, especially for someone like you. I think I'm right in the assumption that you have been looking for it?"

Harry blushed.

Dumbledore sighed. "Come with me, Harry. You must be hungry," he said, taking the boy by the shoulder and leading him down the stairs.

* * *

><p>Harry hurried towards Dumbledore's office, wondering what the headmaster could possibly want. It wasn't a detention for being late for dinner the previous evening as Harry had first thought when the man had told him that his presence was required this afternoon.<p>

"Pumpkin pastry," Harry stated once he had reached the ugly gargoyle that guarded the entrance to the headmaster's office. The beast seemed to look at Harry doubtfully for a moment, but then it moved to the side and revealed something that could best be described as a magical version of a muggle escalator.

"Ah, Harry, you're here," Dumbledore, clad in even more colourful robes than usual, greeted Harry pleasantly, "I hope you've brought your cloak?"

"Uhm, yes, headmaster," Harry answered nervously.

"Good. We will go on a little excursion you should have made years ago. Fawkes will take us."

Before Harry had time to wonder who this Fawkes-person was, Dumbledore pointed to an impressive, red and golden bird that was perched on a rod next to the man's desk. The headmaster motioned Harry to stand next to him and offered him his hand. Somewhat reluctantly, the child took it. He wasn't used to being so close to another human being. His relatives had never touched him if they could avoid it.

"This might feel a bit uncomfortable, but it will be over quickly. Hold on tight," Dumbledore admonished him before calling, "Fawkes?"

Then, several things happened in rapid succession. Fawkes took off its perch and flew towards its owner, who grabbed the bird's tail-feathers. Harry felt himself being lifted off the ground and before he could scream, everything became black. He was about to panic – he couldn't breathe any more! – but as suddenly as it had started, the feeling of being squeezed to death stopped and Harry landed on the snow-covered ground, retching.

Slowly, he became aware of his surroundings. Next to him, the headmaster was standing on his feet, apparently not at all bothered by what had just happened. The bird was gone. When Harry looked around, he discovered that they had landed just outside what seemed to be a small village. With the snow covering everything, it looked quite idyllic.

"What... what just happened?" he asked once he was reasonably sure that he wouldn't throw up if he opened his mouth. He didn't yet dare to get up from the ground, though, still feeling rather dizzy.

"We travelled to Godric's Hollow. A phoenix like Fawkes is quite a useful pet, it can take you practically everywhere in just a few seconds, no matter whether there are anti-apparition wards or not. Apparition means disappearing from one place and reappearing at another one," Dumbledore elaborated upon seeing Harry's dumbfounded expression, "exactly like we did just now, only that it's done without the help of a phoenix."

The headmaster offered Harry his hand. After eyeing it warily for a few moments, he took it and got up. Before he could so much as flinch, Dumbledore had pointed his wand at Harry and cast a spell on his clothes, which were suddenly completely dry and warm again.

"Let's go," Dumbledore said and moved in the direction if the village, still holding Harry's hand.


	7. Chapter 7

_I don't own Harry Potter_

_AN at the bottom - RATING CHANGED TO 'T' !_

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><p><span><strong>Chapter 7<strong>

#

Harry looked around curiously. He had no idea where they were or why the headmaster had taken him here. If he had just wanted to go for a walk, they could have done it on the school-grounds. But they weren't anywhere near Hogwarts, of that Harry was sure, as he couldn't see the lake or any of the mountains that surrounded the castle.

"This, Harry, is Godric's Hollow," Dumbledore repeated when they were approaching a square in what had to be the centre of the village. At one side, a small church and a graveyard were located.

Just when Harry was about to say that he already knew this, Dumbledore spoke up again. "It's the place where you grew up until you where 15 month old." he said calmly, though there was a trace of uncertainty in his voice.

Harry drew in a sharp breeze. This was... this was the place he had lived when he had still had a family. This was where he must have been happy. This was the place where his parents had been murdered.

Harry let go of the headmaster's hand. Almost as if of their own volition, his feet moved towards the graveyard.

Silently, Dumbledore followed the child.

Tiptoeing through the rows and rows of graves, Harry searched for the final resting place of his parents. There were so many graves, and from what he could tell, some of them were several hundreds of years old. Abott... there was a girl in Harry's year whose last name was Abott. Had she lost her family, too? If Voldemort really had been as bad as anybody said, there were bound to be other students who had lost relatives. It had never really occurred to Harry, but he could hardly be the only child who had suffered under you-know-who.

But why was it that nobody ever talked about this?

And then he saw it.

_Lily Potter. 30 January 1960 – 31 October 1981._

_James Potter. 27 March 1960 – 31 October 1981._

_The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death_

_._

This was... Harry looked to the ground. This was where his parents, or what was left of them, had been lying for the last ten years.

Why had Aunt Petunia never taken him here? His mother had been her sister! Had she visited Lily Potter's grave in secret? Or did she really not care that her sister had died, did she really hate her? How was it possible not to love your sibling?

His mum. Harry's mum had been his Aunt's sister. A sudden bout of jealousy flared up in Harry's chest. This was so unfair! Aunt Petunia had been able to spend years and years with his mum, and now she refused to even remember her, let alone talk about her! And Harry, who wished to have just one single day with his parents, Harry didn't even have a single memory of her. It just wasn't fair!

Harry didn't noticed the tears that had started streaming down his face some time ago, nor did he feel the warm hand on his shoulder. Only when Albus Dumbledore gave his shoulder a slight squeeze he came out of his trance and looked up.

The blue eyes of the old man were full of compassion and... love?

The headmaster raised his wand, gave it a slight twirl and suddenly, a bouquet of beautiful sunflowers hovered in front of Harry. Hesitantly, he took it and bend down in order to place it on the grave. He wanted to do it right but since he had never been on a graveyard before, he had no idea how these sort of things were down. Was it considered disrespectful of you stepped too close to the headstone? And where exactly was he supposed to place the flowers?

Harry squinted his eyes. There, under a thin layer of snow, another bunch of flowers was lying. Lilies. Just like his mother's name. Who had brought white lilies to his parent's grave? They couldn't have been here for long as they were still fresh.

Hoping that it was the right thing to do, Harry put the sunflowers next to the lilies. It felt really strange, placing flowers on his parent's grave. They couldn't see them, so what was the point? But he supposed that this was how mourning for dead people was done. You didn't jump through mirrors that showed you what could have been but you brought flowers to the place where the corpses had been buried.

If put that way, both things sounded equally ridiculous.

"In the letter I left with you the night after your parents murder, I told your aunt when and where the funeral would take place. I wasn't surprised when she didn't came, though, I knew that she had never been comfortable around witches and wizards. I thought, however, that she would come later once the crowd had left and that eventually, she would take you. I didn't imagine..."

Harry nodded but didn't answer. A few moments ago, another though had occurred to him.

"Can I... I mean, their- our home. It was here, wasn't it? May I... if there is anything left, can I see it?"

Dumbledore looked at Harry thoughtfully. "Your home was damaged, yes, but not destroyed. After it became apparent that Voldemort's last attack had resulted in his disappearance – many believe death – the responsible people decided to leave the house in its original state. It has served as a memorial ever since. Of course, people aren't allowed to enter it. After the aurors had finished their investigation, they cast wards on the whole property that would prevent anybody from setting a food onto the grounds. As you are the last Potter, I'm positive that the ward wouldn't repel you, however. Of course, I cannot be sure. But Harry, are you really sure that you want to do this?"

Harry nodded. Yes, he was sure. He wanted, he _needed _to see the place where he had once been happy and where this happiness had been ripped away from him so brutally. "Yes. I want to see it!" he answered the headmaster, and this time, his voice wasn't trembling.

"Very well then," Dumbledore said. Once again, his voice sounded tired.

#

The two men left the graveyard side by side. When they had reached the small gate, Harry stopped and turned around, gazing at the bright yellow flowers he could clearly see. He didn't want to leave his parents' grave. But it wasn't as if he would never return to this place, was it? No, now that he knew where his mum and dad were buried, Harry would make sure to visit them as often as possible!

The headmaster cleared his throat and finally, Harry managed to tear his eyes away from the white headstone. Together, the two of them walked down a snow-covered street that seemed to lead out of the village. Unconsciously, Harry gripped Dumbledore's hand.

The old wizard seemed surprised for a few seconds, but then a small smile crossed his face.

"Here we are, Harry," he finally whispered, leading the child towards the left side of the road. Dumbledore's heart clenched painfully. The last time he had visited this place had been two days after the murder.

If the headmaster hadn't said anything, Harry would have walked past the building, just like it had been the case with the Leaky Cauldron. Dimly, he thought that wizards must do something to their buildings for them to have such an effect, but then his eyes fell on the house and all his previous thoughts vanished. This was... this was his _home! _

The house was of average size. Unlike Number 4 Privet Drive, it didn't look like a box used to store humans, but like a place where people lived. However, the damage that had to be a result from That Night was obvious. The door was smashed to pieces and you could see the bottom of a staircase that led to the upper part of the building. A large part of the roof was missing. This must be... this must be where Voldemort had tried to kill him.

"Can I... can I go in?" Harry asked hesitantly.

"Of course, my boy, though I would prefer it if you would take me with you. I don't think anything will happen, the aurors have secured the building before leaving it, but just in case..."

Harry squirmed. The headmaster seemed nice enough, but Harry really didn't want to share this moment with anyone. It was just too private.

As if sensing his thoughts, Dumbledore assured Harry, "I won't enter the house if you don't want me to, I just need you to take me onto the grounds so that I can come in if you need any help. I don't think I'll be able to cross the border without your assistance, and I certainly don't want to find out what will happen if I try. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement isn't a department to mess with," he chuckled.

"Uhm, all right, then," Harry agreed. If the man stayed outside and let Harry explore for himself, he was all right with it.

This time, it was Dumbledore who took Harry's hand. After having received an encouraging nod from the older wizard, Harry put his hand on the gate and pushed it open. He didn't feel anything when he stepped onto the property, but the headmaster drew in a sharp breath. Alarmed, Harry looked up.

"I take it you didn't feel anything?" Dumbledore asked pleasantly. Upon Harry's head-shaking, he continued, "yes, I didn't expect you would. I trust that, if the ministry does have been alerted that someone has breached the wards around your residence, you'll vouch for my presence here? I don't think anybody has noticed anything, but just in case," he quickly elaborated upon Harry's shocked look. It was clear that the boy wanted as less people as possible to witness the first time he would see his first ever – and probably only real - home, Dumbledore thought sadly.

Harry nodded. "Of course Sir. Can I – can I go inside now?"

"Yes, Harry. I'll just wait for you. If you need anything, please don't hesitate to call for me."

After he had given the headmaster one final nod, Harry eagerly went towards what had once been the entrance door. In contrast to the door, the steps that led up to it were undamaged and despite the time that had passed since any human being had set a foot on it, it was almost spot-free. Harry frowned. He remembered all too well how often he had had to clean the Dursely's doorstep, especially during autumn. This garden was full of old trees, all of them bare now, of course, it was January, after all. But how was it that not even a single leaf had fallen onto the doorsteps the previous autumn? And neither, Harry observed, were the steps covered in snow.

His frown deepened. How was this possible?

But then he remembered how Ron had told him about all the different charms his mother used to keep their house clean and tidy, and how Hermione had urged the boys to look them up in the Library because surely they would be useful. Harry and Ron had gotten out of looking up household charms by claiming that they still had tons of homework to do, but Harry couldn't think of a reason why there shouldn't be a spell that kept a surface clean no matter what. It was much simpler than having to clean the front-porch by hand every other week, wasn't it?

Inwardly, Harry shook his head. Here he was, for the first time at his parents' home, and what was he thinking about? Household charms!

Shouldn't he think about something more meaningful? Shouldn't he be sad about the life he could have had?

But instead of feeling dejected or even distraught, Harry felt oddly calm. Almost light-hearted. How could this be? Was he perhaps a bad, cold-hearted and evil son? If he had really loved his parents, he wouldn't be so serene, would he? But then, Harry did feel sad that his mum and dad were dead. More than sad, actually, the thought that he would never have the chance to see them, to hug them, was terrible.

Nevertheless, it felt good to be at the place where he and his parents had lived, where they had been a real family, had been happy. Yes, that was it, Harry realized, finally, after all those lonely years, his parents had become real. No longer were they an abstract concept but two very real people who had lived in a normal house and done normal things like making sure not to have to clean the doorsteps too often.

That thought made Harry feel warm inside. He really did have parents! They were dead, yes, but still. They were real, and he, Harry, was their child. That meant that, as long as Harry lived, they wouldn't be completely gone.

Harry resolved there and then not to let anything or anyone kill him. He wouldn't allow that the last bit that was left of his parents would die.

#

A sudden gust of wind made Harry realized that he was still standing on the doorsteps. Taking a deep breath, he finally stepped inside the house. The staircase he had seen from the outside was dusty and several dry leafs and twigs had gathered at its foot, but otherwise, it looked fine. He would save upstairs for later, though, Harry decided, and moved towards the door that separated the hallway from what had once been the living room of his family.

The floor was made of dark brown wood. Apart from a bit of dust, it looked as good as new. The greying wallpaper, however, had started to peel off the walls. A dark red sofa and two armchairs took up most of the space, and next to them, Harry could see a magnificent fireplace. It looked really cosy...

Harry only knew the very basics about the night of his parents murder, but he wondered whether it had been in this very room where the three of them had spent the last hours of their life together. He imagined that they had just had dinner – he could see the kitchen that was attached to the living room – and that his parents might have played with him before they had decided that it was time for him to go to bed. Or perhaps his mum or dad had read to him so that Harry would get tired? There, on the table between the sofa and the armchair, wasn't that a book?

Harry moved closer. Yes, it clearly was a book, a book that hadn't even been properly closed but only placed on the table upside-down, as if whoever had been reading it would come back any second. Only the yellowing pages indicated that it hadn't been touched for a long time.

Carefully, Harry reached for the book. "A Revised and Updated Edition of the Tales of Beedle the Bard" it read. He had never heard of such a book. Harry knew about fairy-tales, though, as his aunt had read them to Dudley quite often, and he knew that most tales were written for children. So surely this meant... Harry sniffed. If it hadn't been for this stupid Voldemort, he would have grown up with his parents and his parents would probably have read him those Tales of Beedle the Bard until he would have been too old for bedtime stories. How Harry had wished that anyone would read him a bedtime story all those nights he had spent lying awake in his cupboard!

Carefully so that he wouldn't accidentally damage it, Harry closed the book and put it into one of the inner pockets of his robes. This was the house of his family, so surely it was all right if he took a few things? It didn't look as if anyone had bothered to pick up anything after that awful night, although Harry had noticed the absence of his parents' wands or any magical trinkets.

Hadn't those people who had been responsible for... for cleaning up that place thought about the fact that Harry had still been alive and that, once he was older, might appreciate it if his parents' possessions had been kept safe? Or was it normal for wizards to leave everything a person or family had owned inside the house, waiting for it to rot? He should probably consider himself lucky that Dumbledore had taken him here now, otherwise it might have been another six years before Harry had found that book. If it had survived the additional years, that was.

There were other things lying on the table, too. An empty cup. A plate with some brown, nasty looking things upon it that might once have been edible. Several sheets of parchment with official-looking writing on it. Some of them were decorated with blue and red crayon. Harry wondered whether this had been his doing. He couldn't see any crayons, but he supposed that his parents might have put them away as soon as they realized that Harry was using what likely was important paperwork to practice his colouring.

He was about to move towards the chest of drawers on the other side of the room when a thought occurred to him. If this was official paperwork, why hadn't the police taken it? Perhaps he, Harry should take it? If it belonged to his family, surely it was important for him to have it? Deciding that once he had finished looking around he would ask the headmaster about it, Harry focused on the frames that sat on the commode. The colour of the photos had faded, but after what he had seen in the mirror, it was impossible not to recognize the man and the woman that were holding a tiny baby with messy black hair.

Harry didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. All those years he had wondered what his parents might have looked like and all the time, several photos of them had been here, waiting for him. If he had only known about this house, he would have run away from the Dursleys immediately. Living alone in a house – his family's house - could hardly be worse than living alone in a cupboard, could it?

When Harry continued his exploring, it became apparent that running away from his relatives in favour of living where he had spent the first fifteen months of his life might have indeed been the better alternative.

The kitchen was fully equipped and Harry discovered that he had been wrong when he had thought that the people who had investigated his parents' murder had removed everything magical from the premises. He squeaked in surprise when one of the odd tools he found in one of the many drawers started to vibrate as soon as he touched it, and before he even had a chance to drop it, several apples popped into existence.

Well, he certainly wouldn't have gone hungry, it seemed, as there were myriads of similar devices and Harry supposed that each of them produced a different kind of foot.

Apart from the kitchen, the living room and a small bathroom (complete with fluffy towels and loo paper), the ground floor only held one other room, a mixture between a small library and a guest room. One thing was sure, if he would ever bring Hermione he wouldn't be able to get her out of this room for at least a month, Harry thought drily.

Harry, though, was more drawn to the dark brown piano. Dudley had received flute lessons, at least for a short time until he had complained about the teacher who had had the audacity to ask him to practice playing the instrument even out of lessons. Of course, the Dursleys had never bothered about music lessons for Harry.  
>Still, he loved music, and sometimes he dreamt about a tall figure sitting in front of a piano, quite similar to this one, actually, playing a beautiful melody. He had always wondered how it was possible that he had dreamed about a piano even before he had known what it was called like, as it had only been when he started school that Harry discovered that the device that produced those wonderful tunes hadn't been a figment of his imagination.<p>

Now, however, it seemed that he had found the reason for the dreams that had been a welcome change to all those nightmares about green light and high, maniac laughter. But why had no one ever told him about his mum (or his dad, Harry wasn't sure) being able to play the piano? Had no one realized that Harry would have appreciated it to know more about his family than the fact that they had died as war-heroes?

After what felt like an eternity, Harry tore his eyes away from the piano. He still needed to go upstairs and he didn't want to leave Dumbledore waiting outside for longer than necessary. But then, Harry thought, the man was a fairly powerful wizard so surely he would be able to conjure a fire like Hermione did to keep him warm?

The stairs creaked when Harry went up. More photos were lining the wall. A few of them showed his parents and what he supposed had to be his grandparents. Other people, though, he didn't recognize at all. There was a brightly smiling young man with long black hair who seemed to be around the age of his father. He was holding something, a pile of blankets perhaps? Harry stepped closer. It wasn't a pile of blankets. It was a baby. Was this him? But who was the man, and why was he holding Harry? Two other men were standing on either side of the black-haired one but Harry didn't recognize them either.

Harry frowned. There were so many things he didn't know. By all means and purposes, this was his, Harry's, home, but from the photos it could as well have been the house of some strangers. Maybe he should have brought Professor Dumbeldore with him. At least, the man would have been able to answer Harry's questions.

When Harry stepped onto the landing, he immediately noticed the tingling sensation in his forehead, but he didn't pay it any mind. He had experienced much worse during DADA. There, his scar did really hurt. Compared to that, the slight tickling he was feeling now was almost pleasant.

Ignoring all the other doors, Harry purposefully went down the corridor towards the very last one. There was something about that room he couldn't explain. When he touched the door-handle, the tingling in his scar increased. He pushed open the door and had barely time to register that this had once been his nursery before he collapsed.

* * *

><p><em>I'm well aware of the five exception to Gamp's Law, but I decided that the devices Harry found can simply summon food from some sort of container or something similar;) I wanted Harry to find a harmless magical device and this seemed to be fitting.<br>I don't have any plans of including Remus or Sirius, but as some of you have already noticed, I'm very bad at Divination.  
><em>

_As for the cliffhanger... trust me, it would have been much, much worse if I had added the next few paragraphs to this chapter... but there will be a happy end and everything, and it won't be long until everything is all right again, no need to worry. I change the rating to 'T' now, though. The scary stuff will only come next chapter, but I fear that I might forget it otherwise._


	8. Chapter 8

_I don't owl Harry Potter_

_I'm quite sure everyone will agree that this chapter merits the T-rating. I'm not sure why I didn't include the first two lines in the last chapter, they don't seem to fit in this one, but well, perhaps I thought that ending chapter 7 with those words would be too evil._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 8<strong>

#

Outside of the building, Dumbledore heard a dull thud and looked up from where he was having an animated discussion with a rabbit. In dawning horror, he watched as that part of the building that had once housed Harry's room started to glow in an all too familiar, eerie green light.

* * *

><p>Harry floated. He wasn't sure where he was – or if he was at all – but he didn't care. It was warm and everything was cast in a dim light, neither too dark nor too bright. Harry felt more comfortable than he had ever felt before.<p>

Then, a sniffling somewhere next to him caught Harry's attention. He wasn't worried – he knew that wherever he was, nothing would be able to harm him – but he still felt curious. Who else could be at such a wonderful place?

"Hello?" Harry called when he couldn't make out anyone. The sniffling grew louder and Harry had the feeling that whatever it was, it was coming closer.

And then he saw it. In a child's bed he was quite sure hadn't been there before lay a crying baby. Only that it wasn't a normal baby. In fact, Harry thought when he approached the cot and the... the _something, _he couldn't imagine anything that looked less like a human child.

The thing in the bed had red, chapped skin, as if it had been horribly burnt. It's arms and legs were unnaturally thin and it didn't have any hair. The lips were so dark, they looked almost black and were parted slightly. A high, gurgling noise came out of the- the being's mouth.

For a brief moment, Harry thought that he had fallen into one of Dudley's computer games.

The outlines of a partly collapsed room that had started to appear out of the white mist while he had been busy staring at the 'baby', if you could call it that, told him that this wasn't a dream, though. No, he was still in his parents' house, in his former room, to be exact. He had only managed to catch a brief glimpse on his surroundings before he had broken down, but it had been enough to recognize the bed, the changing table, the lamp in the shape of the moon and, of course, the part of the room where the ceiling had collapsed.

So either he was hallucinating or this was real.

By now, the noises the baby-like creature made had increased to a constant wailing, which was starting to grate on Harry's nerves.

"You, ehm, baby?" Harry tried, feeling ridiculous. Perhaps this was some sort of magical trap, a protection against intruders – or maybe Harry had travelled into the past? But no, he was quite sure that, while probably not the most beautiful baby with that scrawny body and messy hair, he hadn't been quite so ugly when he had been young.

Carefully, Harry approached the creature, glad that wherever he had gone his wand was still in his pocket. The baby did look helpless, but you could never be careful enough. He leaned over the bed so that he had a better view on whatever it was and it was then that the being opened its eyes. Harry drew in a sharp breath. The baby's eyes were exactly the same shade of green as Harry's own, but the part of the eyeball that was supposed to be white had a blood-red colour.

Harry would never be sure what had possessed him to do what he did next. Without sparing a thought about whether this was a wise decision or not, he reached out for the child and scooped it up from the soiled blanked it had been lying on, cradling it to his chest and started to rock it in a soothing manner.

"Ssh, it's all right... I've got you. Everything is ok..." Harry mumbled. As soon as he had touched the baby, the tingling in his scar, which he hadn't really paid any attention to during the last few minutes, increased tenfold and he started to feel dizzy. He wasn't really aware of what he was doing, only that whatever was happening, it seemed to help the baby calm down as it became more quiet by the minute. Dimly, Harry wondered why it was that the weight in his arms seemed to become heavier and heavier, and had the child always been this cold?

Then, however, the white fog closed him in again and he knew no more.

* * *

><p>"Harry! HARRY!"<p>

Harry groaned and tried to remember where he was and what had happened. He knew that voice. Somehow, this situation felt awfully familiar. Was he having a deja-vu?

"Harry, if you can hear me, please open your eyes," the same voice asked, though this time, it was much calmer.

Not seeing any reason not to obey the voice, Harry creaked open his right eye – which was much more strenuous than he had expected. However, everything he saw was a blurry figure hovering somewhere above his head. Whatever had happened, he must once again have lost his glasses.

"Harry, what- no," the voice interrupted itself, "just stay where you are. I'll summon help."

From the corner of his eyes, Harry saw a bright flash of light, but it was gone in less than a second and he focused back on more urgent matters: Namely, where was he, what had happened and who was the person next to him?

"My... my glasses?" Harry rasped.

"Oh, of course, I'm sorry, my child, how remiss of me," the voice said and suddenly, Harry could see clearly again.

Apparently, he was lying on the hard floor of a rather dusty room. Kneeling next to him was Professor Dumbledore. The feeling of experiencing a deja-vu escalated, but Harry did notice that he felt much better than the last time he had lain on the ground in a similar position. Additionally, there didn't seem to be any shards around him this time and his clothes weren't drenched in blood either. He looked around and when his eyes fell on the child's bed directly next to his feet, everything that had happened came back to him,

The white mist. The tingling in his scar. The ugly baby. Him cradling the baby to his chest. The baby! Harry gave a whimper of distress and looked around frantically. Where was the child?

For a brief moment, Harry thought that everything had been a dream, as the reddish, baby-like creature seemed to be gone. Then, however, he became slowly aware of something cold in his right hand that was hidden from view under his cloak. Dreading what he would see, he reached for the black fabric and pulled it away.

Too horrified by what he was seeing, Harry couldn't even scream.

#

Dumbledore, who had started waving his wand in complex movements while muttering ancient incantations to determine what had just happened as soon as it had become clear that Harry was still alive and in no immediate danger, focused back on the boy when he felt how said child became stiff.

The wand dropped out of his hands when he realized why it was that Harry had tensed up.

Then, however, instincts kicked in and he grabbed the boy by his shoulders and pulled him away from that awful creature, for now ignoring Harry's startled yelp at being moved so suddenly. Half a second later, his wand was back in the headmaster's hand and a golden beam of light was zooming towards the little being.

"I think it's dead," Harry whispered.

"What?" Dumbledore demanded, sounding tense.

"I think it's dead," Harry repeated. "That- that baby. It was suddenly there after everything had gone white. It was crying really hard, and my scar felt really strange. I-, uhm, I sort of picked it up..." he confessed, hoping that the headmaster wouldn't scold him too harshly. Now that the fog had cleared and his brain was working normally again, he had to admit that it might not have been the wisest decision to touch that- that child.

Dumbledore gave Harry a contemplative look before ordering him to stay where he was. His wand still pointed at the creature that was now ensconced in what seemed to be a cage of light, he moved towards the strange being.

Harry, meanwhile, sat up, leaning against the wall. For everything that had just happened, he felt surprisingly well. Despite him collapsing on the floor, nothing hurt and even the tingling sensation in his scar had disappeared completely.

Harry watched the headmaster casting numerous different spells on the baby – or whatever it was, but he already knew that it wouldn't be of any use. The child was dead. He didn't know how it came that he was so certain of that fact, but Harry knew without a doubt that he was correct. Even before he had realized what the coldness he had felt in his right hand meant, Harry had known, somewhere deep down inside his gut, that only one of the two of them – he or the baby – could still be alive. And since Harry had been lying on a decidedly hard ground, having the urge to sneeze because of the dust, he had been quite sure that he, Harry, was the one who had survived.

But how was it possible that the child was already this cold? Harry had never seen or even touched a corpse – if you didn't count his mum, of course, but he couldn't really remember her, could he? - but he was quite sure that it took some time for a body to become this cold even after the person had died. The child, however, could only have been dead for mere seconds – how was this possible?

Harry's thoughts were interrupted when suddenly, he could hear several loud voices coming from downstairs.

"It's all right, Harry, I have summoned help as soon as I realized that something was happening," Dumbledore, who had seen Harry's startled and somewhat fearful expression, reassured the boy.

Suddenly feeling very tired, Harry just nodded. He supposed he couldn't hold it against the man that he had called for help when Harry had fainted. Dumbledore had told him that he would come inside if he thought that Harry was in danger, and it was only natural when someone called the police or the ambulance if another person seemed to be seriously injured, was it? And this time, someone – the baby – even had died. He really hoped that whoever Dumbledore had called wouldn't hold him responsible for the death of the child...

"We're upstairs," Dumbledore called when more and more people seemed to arrive at the Potter's last residence

'How many people had Dumbledore called?' Harry wondered when what appeared to be a herd of elephants made its way to the first floor.

The headmaster, who had obviously finished whatever he had been doing with the baby and come to where Harry was sitting on the ground, seemed to read the boy's thoughts, as he answered Harry's unasked question.

"I'm afraid that since at that time, I didn't know what was happening, I called each and every person that I thought might be of any help."

Harry had the feeling that Dumbledore hat wanted to say more but just then, several people charged into the room, their wands drawn and ready to strike. Harry tried to make himself as small as possible.

"Albus! What's the matter? What are you doing here?" a tall, square-faced witch demanded. Behind her, Harry could see two men clad in dark red robes.

The headmaster gestured towards the dead baby, that was now encased in what seemed to be some kind of protective bubble. "I don't know what happened, Amelia, although I have my suspicions. Your colleagues from the Department of Mystery might want to take a closer look on this being. It seems to be lifeless, but I would still recommend utmost caution. If this is what I believe it is..."

Two men in black robes that had until now hovered in the shadows behind the red-robed people stepped into the room and immediately began to cast silent spells. Even though being hidden almost completely by Dumbledore's large form, Harry felt several powerful waves of magic rippling over him.

Meanwhile, the witch, who Harry thought had to be in charge of everything as all the other men kept looking at her, addressed Dumbledore again, "I don't appreciate it being left in the dark, Dumbledore, not at all."

Harry thought that she sounded rather rude but Dumbledore gave her a brief smile before launching into the tail of his and Harry's little trip to Lily and James Potter's grave and how Harry had asked if he could see his parents' home. Then, he explained how he had agreed on waiting outside while Harry explored the house and that he had only discovered that something was amiss when the room they were currently standing (or in Harry's and the headmaster's case sitting) in had glowed in a bright green light.

Just then, four additional wizards that were dressed in the same dark red robes as the two already standing behind what Harry had learned was Amelia Bones entered the room.

"The premises is clear, Bones," one of them stated, his tone business-like.

"As is the house," another added, "except for- but he said that Dumbledore had called him, too..." the man sounded unsure.

"That's right, Professor Snape is here on my orders. He will not interfere with your investigation," Dumbledore said quietly but firmly.

Amelia Bones gave him a sharp look but then she nodded. "Robards, Williamson, you will assist Bode and Croaker," she nodded towards the two wizards who were bent over the body of the baby, muttering furiously. "Dumbledore, I don't think you were quite finished yet."

So the headmaster told her about how he had ran inside the house, expecting the worst – Harry didn't quite understand why a bright green light seemed to horrify these people even more than the death of a baby, but he supposed that it might have something to do with the weird nightmare he had had ever since he could remember – and how he found a barely conscious Harry as well as the apparently deceased child.

"You don't think...?" Madame Bones didn't finish that question, but Dumbledore seemed to understand her anyway.

"Yes. Though not in the way one might first believe. This is why I asked you to bring Unspeakables. They will be able to determine the exact nature of that being with far more certainty than anyone else could. Now, if you don't mind, I would like Severus having a look at young Harry here."

"Snape? Don't you think the boy should see a healer?" Madame Bones gave Harry a concerned look.

"If this is what I suspect it might be, Severus is the only one I trust to take care of Harry," Dumbledore said firmly.

Harry worried his lips. He wasn't so sure about Snape. Lately, the man had been rather decent but that didn't change the fact that he hated Harry. He had made this quite clear during last term.

"Don't worry, Harry, I won't leave your side," the headmaster, who had obviously felt Harry's discomfort, reassured him. "Amelia, if you please...?"

Mrs Bones gave Dumbledore a doubtful look but nevertheless turned around towards one of her employees. "Dawlish, you've heard Dumbledore."

Dawlish left the room and only a few seconds later, Professor Snape entered the former nursery. The man was even more pale than usual, Harry observed, and even though his face was as expressionless as ever, Harry noticed the deep pain in the potion master's eyes.

Rigidly, Snape walked over to where Harry and Dumbledore were sitting on the ground. When he pointed his wand at him, Harry couldn't help himself and before he realized what he was doing he grabbed the headmaster's hand. How embarrassing. He, an eleven-year-old boy, acting like a toddler! But when he tried to pull his hand away, Dumbledore wouldn't let it go. Instead, the headmaster's thumb started to rub it soothingly.

"Potter," Snape drawled, too quiet for the other occupants of the room to hear, "look into my eyes and think about what happened after you entered this room. Concentrate on every single detail. If you cooperate, this will be over quickly."

Harry nodded, albeit a bit fearfully. He looked up and met the man's obsidian eyes. He was so focused on how he had felt when entering his old nursery, how his scar had tingled and how suddenly, the whole room had been filled with white mist and the gurgling noises of the child, that he didn't even hear Snape's muttered "Legilimens!"

As far as Harry could tell, the whole procedure didn't take more than a few seconds. He felt a slight pressure in his head and then pictures of the events of the last fifteen minutes filled his mind. The crying creature, how he, Harry, had lifted it up (here, Harry thought that the pressure in his head increased) and how it had finally become still. Then, the headmaster's face was swimming in the forefront of his mind and it was then that Snape stopped whatever he was doing and the world slowly returned back to normal.

Slightly confused, Harry looked around, and so didn't noticed how the potion master cast another spell on him.

As far as he could tell, even more people had arrived during whatever Snape had done with his head. Additionally, someone had erected a screen around the place where the body of the baby had been lying. Harry was rather grateful for this. He still felt sick when thinking about how the child had looked and how cold it had become when it had died.

Harry snapped out of his thoughts when Snape addressed Dumbledore. "Your assumption seems to have been correct, Albus."

Dumbledore nodded thoughtfully.


	9. Chapter 9

_I don't own Harry Potter_

_I'm pretty sure there will be three more chapters (after this one, that is), I think I have found a good way to end this story. Thanks to everyone who read, reviewed, followed or favourited this story:)  
><em>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 9<strong>

#

Harry felt on the edge. He was tired and confused and he couldn't get the image of the screaming creature out of his mind and still nobody seemed to be prepared to explain anything to him. He had just wanted to see his and his parents' house, see the place where he (probably) had been happy, where he had been loved. He didn't want all those people here. It felt wrong. This was his, this was private, this was, apart from the mirror and the graveyard, the only place where Harry had ever felt close to his family. But nobody seemed to care.

"I want to go," he demanded, not able to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

Before the headmaster could answer, though, Snape, who, unbeknownst to Harry, had watched the child's rapidly changing expression carefully, spoke up. "It may seem disrespectful, Mr Potter, but let me assure you that it will be worth it."

After that odd statement, Snape inclined his head before turning around and quickly leaving the room. Harry watched the man's retreating back in bewilderment. What was that supposed to mean? And how had Snape, of all people, known how Harry was feeling?

"He is right, Harry," Dumbledore said quietly, but before he could elaborate, they were interrupted by Madame Bones.

"I need to speak with Mr Potter personally, Albus."

"Of course," Dumbledore nodded but gave no sign that he intended to get up from the ground. "Do you feel up for this, Harry?"

Harry pondered on this statement. As far as he could tell, all the people currently occupying his old nursery were from the police, so it wasn't as if he had a choice, was it? If the police wanted to talk to you, you couldn't refuse. Well, you could, but then they would lock you up until you were willing to cooperate. He had only ever been able to listen to the telly from the inside of his cupboard, but nevertheless Harry had learnt some things from it. However, the woman seemed to wait for an answer, so Harry nodded.

"Albus, if you would please wait somewhere else while I talk to Mr Potter...?"

"No, Amelia, I will stay," Dumbledore twinkled at the frowning witch, "I have promised Harry not to leave his side while you and your colleagues carry out your duty. Besides, I am Harry's guardian so I have every right to stay while he gives his testimony."

"His guardian? You told us he was staying with his muggle relatives all those years ago!" Madame Bones asked sharply. Harry didn't heard her, though, he was too busy worrying about the testimony he was supposed to give. Telling the lady what had happened was one thing, but a testimony? He wasn't even sure what exactly a testimony was, but it sounded awfully complicated.

"I have only become Harry's guardian recently, Amelia, when it became apparent that his relatives were unfit." when he mentioned the Dursleys, the headmaster's voice became frosty.

Madame Bones gave Dumbledore a calculating look but finally, she seemed to come to the decision not to demand more information. At least not now. However, she _was _the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and she knew Dumbledore well enough to know that only very few things could unsettle the normally serene headmaster. And normally, those things did fall within the competence of her department.

Now, however, wasn't the time. She had a distraught child to deal with. "Very well, then, Dumbledore, you may stay. Mr Potter, I will now ask you a few questions. I would like you to answer honestly and please do not leave anything out. If you don't remember something, just tell me so, you won't be in any trouble."

Harry nodded. This didn't sound so complicated after all.

"Can you please tell me exactly what happened directly before you encountered the- the being?" Madame Bones asked.

Harry contemplated the woman's question. As she had specifically asked about what had happened _directly _before he had found the baby, Harry didn't think it was necessary to tell her about the book still in his pocket – it seemed ages ago that he had picked it up from the table in the living-room – or the documents or the magic widgets that could conjure apples he had found downstairs. No, these were his now and he wouldn't risk the police deciding that those things needed to be removed after all.

A soft prod from Dumbledore's arm brought Harry out of his musings. "Uhm, well, I went upstairs – I just wanted to have a look. And then my scar started to tingle. It didn't hurt, not exactly, it just felt weird. Uhm, then everything got kind of hazy. I went into this room even though I didn't really mean to, and suddenly there was white fog everywhere. Well, ehm, then I heard this wailing. At first, I didn't see anything, but then the baby was there. It was lying in a cot and kept screaming and was just looking awful. I don't know where it came from, though, I'm sorry..."

"This is quite all right, Mr Potter," Madame Bones assured him, "just tell me what you know, we'll figure out the rest."

"Well, I really wanted the baby to stop crying, and I kind of picked it up -"

"You're _what_ ?" both Madame Bones and Dumbledore asked, sounding horrified.

"I picked it up. It was crying. And it was only a baby," Harry explained, not really understanding the adults' reaction. "I wanted to comfort it, but I think I must have lost consciousness immediately after I had lifted it up. The next thing I remember is lying on the ground and Professor Dumbledore calling my name. I think... I think the baby died when I fell," the last part, Harry all but whispered.

Next to him, the headmaster drew in a sharp breath and Harry flinched. He didn't dare to look up.

The voice that spoke next was surprisingly gentle, though. "You didn't kill the being – baby, as you call it – Mr Potter. Me and my team are quite sure that it perished almost immediately when you first touched it."

Now it was Harry who looked horrified. His _touch _had killed the baby? Merlin – he was a monster!

Having realized her mistake, Madame Bones hurried to rectify her statement. "That was a bit ambiguous, I'm afraid. I didn't mean to imply that your touch killed the being, Mr Potter. You see, this creature isn't an ordinary baby, or even human at all."

"Not human?" Harry echoed. How could it not have been human?

Madame Bones opened her mouth, but Dumbledore beat her. "I don't think this is the right place for this discussion, Amelia, Harry."

"The boy has a right to know, Dumbledore," the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement hissed before Harry had a chance to argue.

"I agree with you, Amelia, and rest assured that Harry's questions will be answered. I just don't think that it would be appropriate to have this admittedly difficult talk here, with several strangers probably overhearing us. Additionally, I think it's high time that Harry and I get back to Hogwarts. A dose of Dreamless Sleep and a night in the infirmary is in order, I presume. Don't look at me like that, Amelia, I _will _tell Harry. If you don't believe me and if Harry is all right with it, you may even come to Hogwarts and join us for our little chat."

"I don't want to spend the night in the infirmary," Harry objected before the frowning Madame Bones had the chance to reply to Dumbledore's proposal.

"Then perhaps you might want to spend the night in your new room in our quarters? I didn't yet have the chance to furnish it properly, mind you, but I'm really not comfortable with you spending the night in Gryffindor tower, my boy, where no one will be able to keep an eye on you."

"I have a room in your quarters?" Harry asked dumbfounded.

"Our quarters, Harry, and yes, of course you have."

For several long moments, Harry was too shocked to say anything, and Madame Bones took advantage of the boy's silence and finished her explanation. "As I have told you, the creature is not human, so you don't need to worry about having harmed a human being. You are not in any trouble, Mr Potter. Even though it looks corporeal, the being is purely magical in nature. How it managed to adopt this form – well, I think this will be something the headmaster will tell you once you have recovered from this ordeal."

Harry, who was still reeling from the headmaster's last words, could only nod.

"I trust that nothing of what happened here will reach the press?" Dumbledore asked Madame Bones while getting up from the floor.

Madame Bones frowned. "You are the head of the Wizengamot, Dumbledore, so you know very well that nothing that involves the Department of Mysteries will be revealed to the public."

Dumbledore inclined his head. "Of course, Amelia. Now, Harry, are you ready to return to Hogwarts?"

Startled, Harry looked up. "Hogwarts?" he asked, still feeling a bit dazed. "I don't want to – I mean, I don't want all these people here. What if they do something to the house or the books or the piano? What if they take something? My parents-" he broke off, not really sure what he wanted to say. He didn't really worry about the police – or whatever they were – stealing anything, he just wasn't comfortable with the thought of leaving his home in the hand of strangers - again. This house was one of the last connections he still had to his late parents, he couldn't lose this, too. And returning to Hogwarts while other people still occupied his home just felt wrong – disrespectful.

"Let me assure you that nobody will take anything, except if we encounter something dangerous, of course," Madame Bones said firmly.

Harry couldn't tell whether he had offended the woman or not – he had insinuated that her colleagues might be thieves, after all – but he didn't really care. All he wanted was those strangers to leave his home! "I stay until you have left!" he replied fiercely.

Amelia Bones sighed. If Harry was anything like her niece Susan, she would lose this battle. "Mr Potter, I promise you that the aurors, the Unspeakables and myself will only take dangerous items from this house. And even then we are required to catalogue every single device and inform you about its confiscation. You will, of course, get back anything that proves to be in your possession legally. I don't expect to actually find anything dangerous, mind you, my predecessor already searched the house after- after the attack on you and your parents, but I won't take any risks either. I'm sure you plan to visit your parents' house again some time in the future?"

Upon Harry's nod, she continued. "Well, then it's in your own interest to make sure that nothing harmful still lingers here, isn't it?"

Harry gave the witch a gloomy look and nodded. She was right, he had to admit, he wanted to come here as often as possible and it would be nice to do so without having to worry about encountering other dead babies. But still, he wouldn't leave until _after_ the police had left, and nobody could make him to, this was his home!

"How about this, Harry," Dumbledore suggested, "I will call Professor McGonagall and we will ask her whether she would mind staying here, keeping an eye on the aurors. Then you wouldn't need to worry about anybody tampering with the legacy of your parents but could still rest."

Harry considered the headmaster's proposal. He _was _tired, more than tired actually, exhausted, and the thought of snuggling down in his comfy bed was rather tempting. And Professor McGonagall was all right, wasn't she? She would make sure that nothing happened to his home. His parents had been Gryffindors, too, after all, and his father had even played seeker for the house-team. Harry was well aware that Quidditch meant quite a lot to his head of house, so this could be considered as some kind of reciprocal agreement, couldn't it? He and his father played (or in his father's case had played) Quidditch so that Professor McGonagall could have the shiny trophy in her office, and the professor would make sure that nothing happened to the Potter family's last home.

"OK," Harry finally agreed. Dumbledore beamed at him before raising his wand, giving it a slight twirl and shooting a silvery-white mist into the air, quite similarly to the fog that had filled Harry's nursery earlier, actually.

"She will arrive shortly," the headmaster announced.

Indeed, about five minutes later, a wide-eyed Professor McGonagall came through the door of Harry's nursery. "Albus! Amelia! What happened?"

Dumbledore gave her an edited version of the events that had occurred after he and Harry had left the graveyard. Thankfully, the head of Gryffindor refrained from screaming at Albus when he told her that he had allowed Harry to enter the house on his own, but from the look in her eyes the old man knew that he would be in for it once they were back at the school and out of Harry's earshot.

"Don't worry, Mr Potter," Professor McGonagall declared when her employer had finished his explanation, "your mother and father were two of my favourite lions and I will make sure that nothing happens to their property. And you, Albus, you and I will have a serious discussion once I'm back, and you will answer my questions, _all_ of my questions, don't be mistaken about this."

Dumbledore winced. Sounded as if the matter with allowing Harry to roam the Potter's house on his own wasn't the only thing Minerva was mad about. Well, she _had _told him that the Dursleys were the worst sort of muggles all those years ago. If he had only listened to her concerns...


	10. Chapter 10

_I don't own Harry Potter_

_I'm sorry for the wait, I have very important exams at the moment, so I hardly have time left to spend on fanfiction. In two weeks, it will get better, though!_

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><p><strong>Chapter 10<strong>

#

When Harry woke up, the sun was already shining through the large window on the far side of the room.  
>For a few moments, he didn't know where he was, but then it hit him. He had a new room, a room all for himself, in Dumbledore's personal quarters! Well, his new guardian had insisted that now these rooms belonged to Harry as well as Dumbledore himself, but Harry couldn't yet wrap his mind around this. Having a real home, a home at Hogwarts... that was more than he had ever dreamed of.<p>

But no, this wasn't true. What he had really dreamed of all those years he had been forced to sleep in a tiny cupboard had been his parents coming and taking him home. However, Harry knew that no matter how much he wished for his dream come true, it wouldn't happen. The mirror was destroyed and the house in Godric's Hollow was empty. And only two graves... Harry pulled himself together. He didn't want to dwell on those depressing thoughts, not now. He had a room to explore.

Last night, Harry had been too tired to pay attention to anything except for the fact that a four-poster bed even larger than the one in his dormitory in Gryffindor took up almost a quarter of his new room. He had been ready to fall asleep without even changing his clothes, but Professor Dumbledore had told him that he needed to stay awake for just a few more minutes since he had to take a potion that would prevent nightmares.

Harry had barely registered the tiny creature with its large eyes and ears that had brought the comparatively well-tasting (or at least not completely disgusting-tasting) potion. Obediently, he had drowned the content of the vial Dumbledore had offered him, and then it hadn't taken more than half a minutes for Harry to fall asleep.

Apparently, though, the headmaster had removed his outer clothes (though thankfully not Harry's underwear – the mere thought made him blush beet red!) and even tucked him in. That had been really nice of him, Harry thought. Dumbledore was clearly a much better guardian than the Dursleys, _they_ wouldn't have cared whether Harry slept comfortably or froze to death during the night.

Well, he conceded while crawling out from under his red-and-gold bedclothes, they _might _have cared if Harry had died, but only because of the funeral they surely had been required to pay for.

Trying very hard not to think of what had happened yesterday, Harry walked through the rather empty room. He dimly remembered that his new guardian had said something about going on a shopping trip to Diagon Alley, but Harry wasn't sure he had understood the man correctly. The room was already furnished with a great bed, a closet, a desk with a chair in front of it and even a sofa. He already had clothes and his school-things, so what could the headmaster possibly want to buy?

The view from the window was spectacular. It seemed that Dumbledor's quarters were located in one of the highest towers of the entire castle and Harry could overview the lawns and most of the lake. It was so beautiful. And if Dumbledore had been truthful about his guardianship (and Harry just felt that the man hadn't lied to him), it meant that Harry could stay here practically forever.

A loud rumbling pulled the boy out of his thoughts. Warily, he looked around, only to discover that the grumbling noise had come from his own stomach. Hopefully, breakfast wasn't over yet, though he had little hope. Well, it wasn't as if Harry wasn't used to going hungry.

#

Five minutes later, after he had dressed in fresh clothes that had miraculously appeared in the closet, Harry took a deep breath and opened the door. He didn't remember if Dumbledore had said anything about Harry being allowed to roam the quarters on his own, but he hadn't had any dinner yesterday and therefore he was almost starving.

The room on the other side of Harry's door was rather... colourful. Two sofas – one yellow, the other a deep purple – were placed on a bright red carpet. The walls of what had to be a living-room were painted in apple-green and decorated with paintings that made Harry's head spin.  
>Several doors in different shades of blue led to other parts of the headmaster's quarters and Harry was just about to try his luck with the one on the far left when a door in a particularly garish shade of blue opened, revealing his new guardian himself.<p>

"Ah, Harry, you're awake!" Dumbledore exclaimed, obviously pleased. "I was just about trying to wake you up, it's almost lunchtime and if I remember correctly, you didn't have any supper yesterday."

_'Lunchtime?_' Harry thought. Well, he had certainly never slept this long before. "Good morning, Professor Dumbledore, Sir," Harry, remembering his manners, greeted the headmaster, "I will just go down to the Great Hall and see whether lunch has already been served. Uhm, shall I return to Gryffindor tower then...?" Most of his clothes had been moved to the room he had slept in, but that didn't mean that Dumbledore wanted him to stay permanently. Surely the man was grateful for each minute he didn't have to deal with his students?

"Well, Harry, actually, I thought that you and I could have our meal in our quarters so that I can answer some of the questions you surely have. There aren't many students left over the holidays but I don't think you'd be comfortable discussing something of this magnitude with the risk of being overheard by one of your classmates or one of my colleagues."

Harry squirmed. On the one hand, he had an awful lot of questions, but on the other, he didn't want to think about what had happened ever again.

Apparently, Dumbledore noticed his discomfort as he crossed the room and put a soothing hand on Harry's shoulder. "It might not feel this way, but talking things through well help a great deal more than suppressing everything only for it to hound you in your dreams. I promise that once you have understood exactly what happened to you yesterday afternoon you'll feel better. It may be hard to believe and I'm sure you'd preferred not to go through all of this, but what happened in your parents' home wasn't an entirely bad thing."

Somewhat reluctantly, a confused Harry allowed his guardian to lead him into what turned out to be a rather spacious kitchen. He knew that the man was _probably _right. That didn't mean he had to like it, though.

"Candy?"

Startled, Harry looked up. He knew Dumbledore was into sweets, but surely he wouldn't allow Harry to have them for breakfast, would he? Not even a second later, though, it became clear that 'Candy' wasn't something edible but one of the tiny creatures Harry dimly remembered from the previous evening.

"Will you please bring us tea and a light breakfast for young Harry?"

"Of course, Master Dumbledore," the house elf squeaked and popped away again.

As soon as Harry had sat down, a plate with scrambled eggs, a few delicious-looking rashes of bacon and grilled tomatoes appeared in front of him. Next to it, Harry found another plate with several slices of toasts and a wide variety of jam and marmalade, a glass of pumpkin juice as well as tea for both Dumbledore and Harry.  
>If that Candy-creature thought that this was a light breakfast Harry didn't want to know what she would have served if the headmaster had demanded a Full English Breakfast...<p>

"Tuck in!" Dumbledore said, beaming when Harry did just that. For a few minutes, the two man sat in silence, Harry practically inhaling his food while this guardian nibbled on a slice of toast coated with raspberry-jam.

#

"So, Harry," Dumbledore said once Harry had cleared most of his plate, "where to begin? Well, you might be interested in hearing that Madame Bones contacted me early in the morning to inform me that her colleagues from the Department of Mysteries as well as the aurors have searched your parents' former home without encountering anything else that could possibly pose a threat. Aurors are similar to policemen in the muggle world and the Department of Mysteries deals with hitherto unknown or forgotten branches of magic," he elaborated upon Harry's quizzical expression.

"So, ehm I can go back? To our house, I mean?" he hadn't dared to hope that the adults would allow him to ever enter that building again.

"Yes, Harry, although I'd ask you to consider letting someone accompany you the next time you visit Godric's Hollow. It doesn't have to be me, any adult who knows the basics about Defence will do. Professor McGonagall still is quite displeased with me for allowing you to enter a building that has at one point been the scene of magic still not entirely understood all on your own."

Absent-mindedly, Dumbledore rubbed his cheek and Harry, following the man's movements, noticed several red blotches on the man's face. Surely Professor McGonagall hadn't attacked the headmaster?!

Well, the thought was quite funny, actually, Harry decided. Everyone always talked about how powerful Dumbledore was. And the image of the elderly witch hitting the man... Harry had to stifle a giggle, though he wasn't sure whether he had been successful, as his guardian gave him a wink before dropping his hand.

"Anyway, Harry, if you want to, you can ask me questions now." Dumbledore smiled at the little boy on the other side of the table.

Harry didn't need to be asked twice. "What was that... that baby? The police-lady said that it wasn't human but it did look human! Why did it die? And where did it come from? Why-" he stopped when Dumbledore raised his hands.

"One thing after the other, Harry. Madame Bones – that is the Lady that interrogated you yesterday evening – was right, the being wasn't human. It appears that the magic your mother unintentionally used to protect you from Voldemort the night she died combined with the energy of the failed Killing Curse affected the place of their casting in a way nobody has ever experienced before. You are aware, of course, that the scar on your forehead is a remnant of this very magic?"

Harry nodded. Yes, Hagrid had told him about his scar and that he was famous for it. He had even started to search the library for the books Hermione had mentioned that had been written about him.

Until now, he hadn't believed anything those books claimed had happened, though. He didn't have a magical blade in his head that could be extended through his scar at will to kill people and Harry was quite sure that it hadn't been some weird god-thingy called 'Zeus' that had marked him with his symbol either.

No, to Harry, the explanation for his scar was quite simple: He had been hurt the night his parents had been killed and since nobody had treated his injury it had scared quite badly.

Now, however, it seemed that Dumbledore was about to tell him that there really was something funny about his scar...

"When I saw you the night after the attack, I had my suspicions about what the mark on your forehead might mean, though I wasn't entirely sure. Actually, I hoped to be wrong," the headmaster continued. "However, during the last ten years I have acquired a great deal of knowledge about what Voldemort did that resulted in him not being killed but only banished by his own curse and what it could mean for you. It seems that he took some rather drastic measures to ensure his immortality.

"It's very dark magic, Harry, and I'm not comfortable with telling you exactly what he did – your are so young, only a child, you shouldn't even know about all the evil in our world yet, much less being affected by it. But you need to know the basics in order to understand what happened to you yesterday. It was your mother's love for you that made it impossible for Voldemort to kill you that Halloween. The fact that she died for you provided you with a form of protection Voldemort was entirely unfamiliar with. He couldn't have killed you that night, no matter what.

"However, being terrified of dying himself, Voldemort used ancient and dark magic to ensure his survival even if his body was killed. From what I have learned during the past years, he used dark rituals to break his soul into pieces. There was a time when this form of magic was widely known, but even then hardly anybody put it into practice, since amongst other things, it requires the murder of a human being. Voldemort, however, seems to have split his soul not only once but several times, something nobody else has ever tried before. He was so terrified of death that he willingly ripped apart his very being in order to gain immortality."

Harry listened in a mixture of awe and horror. He could understand that someone would be afraid of dying – nobody could tell you whether it would be painful, after all.  
>But death itself wasn't something to fear, Harry thought. His parents were dead, and even though Harry wasn't sure whether his own death would mean that he would see his family again of whether there would only be nothingness, there was always hope that there was indeed some kind of afterlife.<p>

Somehow, it was very ironical that Voldemort feared death probably more than Ron feared spiders while Harry had contemplated taking his own life ever since seeing his parents in the mirror.

Harry didn't understand how everything the headmaster had just told was related to him, to Harry, and the baby he had found in his parents' house, though. Well, Dumbledore clearly was about to continue his explanation so for now, he would just wait, Harry decided.

"The day he went to kill you and your family, Voldemort's soul was already damaged to the point that he hardly had any control over it any more. He didn't know this, though, and this resulted in him being rather reckless. To him, the human soul only was a means to an end, something that would bind his being to the world of the living. He didn't take into consideration that an intact, undamaged soul has a power of its own. He cast the killing curse at your father and your mother, not thinking about what it could mean for him if two people willingly gave their very life to protect loved ones. And then, when he tried to kill you, something he did not expect happened."

"But why did he try to kill me?" Harry interrupted his guardian.

Dumbledore drew in a deep breath. He had promised both Amelia and Minerva to tell Harry everything. He still wasn't sure whether this was the right course of action, but then, he had thought that putting Harry with the Dursleys and allowing him to enter the Potter-family's last home had been the right thing to do... if the last days had taught Dumbledore anything, then that he wasn't infallible. And so he decided to answer Harry's question, to tell him about the prophecy that had been made before the child had even been born.

When the headmaster had finished his explanation about the prediction that apparently foretold that he, Harry, would be the one who had the power to defeat Voldemort, Harry stared at Dumbledore doubtfully. "He was practically the most powerful wizard ever and he believed in a _prophecy_?"

"Well, Harry, in the wizarding world, there _are _prophecies. Of course, many turn out to be wrong or at least misunderstood, but there have been cases where prophecies have indeed come true."

"But how do you know which one is true and which isn't?"

"You cannot know, I think – at least if the prophecy isn't made by someone who is quite obviously a fraud. However, Voldemort's course of action itself resulted in this particular prophecy becoming true – or at least, it was true until yesterday."

By now, Harry was even more confused. That didn't make sense! To Harry, making predictions sounded a lot like gambling. And now Dumbledore even claimed that a prophecy that had once been true had suddenly become untrue?!  
>This had to be another one of those wizard-things. Perhaps Hogwarts should offer a course for muggleborn (and muggle-raised) students so that they could actually understand the weird things wizards and witches took for granted.<p>

"I don't know what you mean, Professor Dumbledore," Harry told the man honestly.

"Yes, it's quite confusing, I know and I'm sorry. You'll understand soon, though," Dumbledore smiled at Harry apologetically. "For now, let's just turn back to the moment where Voldemort cast the killing curse at you. He didn't expect that something would go wrong, otherwise he would surely have taken precautions. He didn't expect that your parents love for you and their willing sacrifice would provide you with a protection stronger than any known magic. This protection resulted in the killing curse rebounding to its originator. It scraped you but didn't harm or even kill you but-"

"But only left me with that scar on my forehead, I know, Hagrid already told me," Harry once again interrupted the headmaster, feeling slightly annoyed. He wanted to know what exactly had happened yesterday, not relive the moment that had cost him a happy childhood.

"No, Harry, that wasn't what happened," Dumbledore twinkled at the now flabbergasted boy.

"But Hagrid-"

"I know what Hagrid told you, and that's the story you should stick to when talking to anybody you aren't one hundred percent sure you can trust. That's what the wizarding world believes what happened that night. The truth, however... well, not even I was completely certain until yesterday."

Harry inched forward on his stool, holding his breath.

"As I have said, the killing curse rebounded and hit Voldemort instead. Under normal circumstances, it would have killed him. Due to the magic he had employed to gain virtual immortality, though, he didn't die. His body disintegrated and most of what was left of his soul fled. Until this point, everything went as he had expected it would should he one day be exposed to a lethal curse. The repeated splitting of his soul, however, had left that part of his soul that inhabited his body weak, fragile. And the energy of the killing curse he had just cast was enough to tear it apart one additional time, without him meaning to do so and, more importantly, without him noticing what had happened. Only one part of his soul fled. The other part..."

Here, Dumbledore grew quiet. Harry had the sinking feeling that he knew what the man was trying to tell him.

"For reasons I'm unfamiliar with, the part of his soul that was left behind attached itself to the only living being in the vicinity. It attached itself to you, Harry. That's where you got the scar from. And that's the reason why after yesterday events, this very scar faded and is now almost invisible."

Smilingly, Dumbledore conjured up a small mirror so that Harry, who had snatched a tea-spoon in order to admire his now almost unblemished forehead, could have a good look at what had once been his famous scar.

"It's gone!" he exclaimed, "well, not completely, you can still see it, but only if you look very, very hard. It's really gone!" Until half a year previously, Harry had really liked his scar and would have been quite sad to find out that it had suddenly disappeared. Ever since his first visit to the Leaky Cauldron and even more so after his first few days at Hogwarts, though, Harry had started to despise the scar that made him instantly recognizable. Perhaps now he could be a normal boy. Perhaps now all those people would stop staring at him as if he was an exotic animal.

Harry lowered the mirror and eyed his guardian. "But how is it possible? What has the baby to do with my scar?"

"The baby, as you call it, was the physical manifestation of the Hor- of that part of Voldemort's soul that resided into your scar ever since that night."

Harry stared at the man in horror. "That was – that was _Voldemort_?"

"Well, a part of him. As you have seen, his soul is badly damaged and I'm not sure whether he would be able to survive even if he did acquire a new body. There are limits to what a human's soul can endure. At some point, it will cease to be human."

"But how is it possible that he just came out of my scar?" Harry demanded, alternately feeling sick that something like _this _had lived in his forehead for more than 10 years and relieved that it was now gone.

"That is something Bode and Croaker – the two man in black cloaks you saw yesterday – are trying to determine. They work for the Department of Mysteries and deal with unexplainable occurrences frequently. If I would hazard a guess, I'd say that the lingering magic of your mother's sacrifice and the echo of Voldemort's curse were somehow activated by your presence in that room, you, whose life has been affected so profoundly by both of their magic. The two forces seems to have resumed the duel they fought out on Halloween 1981. This time, your mother's love has clearly won, though."

"You mean that there is no longer a part of Voldemort in my head?"

"Yes, Harry. Apart from the fact that your scar faded, the things you told Madam Bones have convinced me that there is indeed nothing left of Voldemort in your scar. When everything became foggy, you only sensed the presence of one other being, did you?"

Harry nodded. Yes, he was quite sure that there – wherever 'there' had been - hadn't been anybody else.

"I'm positive that if there had been more than this one sliver of Voldemort's soul in your scar, you'd have noticed."

"And the baby – Voldemort, I mean – he cannot come back? He cannot go back into my scar?" Harry asked. He had to be absolutely sure. The thought that _that thing _might return into his head made him feel sick.

"No, Harry, that part of Voldemort is well and truly dead."

"I have – I have killed it?" his heart was racing. This was Voldemort – well, part of him, anyway – so surely nobody would mind if he, Harry, had killed that part. The whole wizarding world still was in a frenzy because he had supposedly 'killed' Voldemort ten years ago. But the thought that he was responsible for another person's death – no, Harry couldn't bear the thought, no matter how vile the other person might have been. He didn't want to be a murderer. He didn't want to be like Voldemort.

"What killed that part of his soul was Voldemort himself, who simply went too far in his quest for immortality, and your mother's magic that continues to protect you against him even long after her own death. You killed nobody, Harry."

Harry breathed a sight of relief. It might appear strange that he was glad that it hadn't been him who had killed a part of his parents' murderer, and Harry wasn't even sure he himself understood his reluctance to do so completely, but he couldn't change the way he felt.  
>He couldn't help but to see the crying, helpless baby in front of his inner eye. No matter how ugly it had been, no matter that it had at one point been part of one of the most vicious wizards that had ever existed, it had still been only a little child.<p>

A freaky, unwanted child.

Harry didn't know whether he dared to tell his guardian about these thoughts. What if Dumbledore thought he was as evil as Voldemort because he felt pity for part of the dark wizard's soul? But it had only been a child...

"What happened to... to It?" Harry finally asked the old wizard.

"According to Professor McGonagall, the Unspeakables took that part of Lord Voldemort to the Department of Mysteries to determine its exact nature shortly after our departure. As far as I know, it's still there. I'm sure Amelia – Madame Bones – would have told me if they had relocated it. I don't know what they plan on doing with the body, though. It shouldn't even exist, and I don't think it would be wise to keep an artefact like this."

"Can we bury it?" Harry chocked out, not daring to look at the headmaster.

"Bury it?" Dumbledore echoed, dumbfounded.

"Yes. It's only a child. It's not his fault that it's all... freakish."


	11. Chapter 11

_I don't own Harry Potter_

_Sorry for the delay... I had important exams (and I passed them), then I went on holidays and... well, here is the next chapter. After this one, there will only be one other one and it won't really be a real chapter, just a short epilogue._

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><p><strong>Chapter 11<strong>

#

Dumbledore's eyes softened. "I'm not sure whether they would allow us to do so, Harry. Despite it's physical appearance, that 'child' is still part of Voldemort. I don't think it would be safe to simply bury it. There are still followers of Voldemort who haven't been imprisoned, and if they got wind of a part of their Master being buried on a graveyard somewhere, they would try to retrieve the body in order to use it for their own goals. There are still other parts of Voldemorts soul around, and I shudder at the thought of what they could possibly try to do."

"But-," Harry desperately tried to argue. No matter how unreasonable, he wouldn't allow those wizards to treat the body of a baby like dirt simply because of what the soul it originally had belonged to had done. They hadn't heard the cries of the baby, they hadn't seen how completely helpless and vulnerable it had looked.

Neither Dumbledore nor the other wizards had seen that the child had suffered under Voldemort just as much as Harry had. No, Harry would make sure that least it was properly buried.

"I want us to bury it. If we don't tell anybody about what we're doing, nobody will ever find out. They say that you are the most powerful wizard alive and that even Voldemort didn't attack you when he was still around. You can just cast a spell on me that prevents me from ever telling anybody that we have buried the baby, then nobody will ever find out." Harry said in a firm voice, determinedly looking at the headmaster.

"Why are you so intent on laying a part of that very man to rest that deprived you of your family?"

Harry considered the question, but even after two minutes of silent contemplating, he wasn't sure what to say. "I don't know," he admitted at last, "you haven't seen the child – when it was still alive, I mean. It was only a little baby and hasn't done anything wrong. It wasn't its fault that it had to live in my scar. And I don't think it's right to treat people without proper respect. If you act as if you don't care for the life of a child, you're not really any better than Voldemort, are you?"

Harry really hoped that this didn't sound as if he accused Dumbledore of being anything like Voldemort – he wasn't! On the contrary, he was quite sure that Dumbledore was completely the opposite of the dark wizard. After all, he had fought him and everything, and he had tried to protect Harry – even if he hadn't done a very good job, he had to admit. But Dumbledore had at least tried, while Voldemort was responsible for making Harry's childhood miserable.

Anyway, Harry wouldn't allow the headmaster doing something even remotely similar to what Voldemort might have done, such as treating the body of a child as if it was only scum. Because if he did, there was no real point in fighting Voldemort, was there? His parents' sacrifice would have been in vain.

Harry didn't yet know about Legilimency and Occlumency, nor about the fact that everything he thought was practically written on his face so that it was quite difficult for anyone with only average skills in that particular branch if magic _not _to pick up on his line of thought.

So Harry was a bit surprised when the old wizard sitting across from him stood up quite suddenly, turning towards the window behind him and gazing onto the snow-covered grounds for several minutes.

"Uhm, Professor Dumbledore, Sir?" Harry asked after a while, not sure what was going on.

"I'm sorry, Harry, I got distracted," Dumbledore said, turning around again.

Harry's eyes widened when he noticed that his guardian's eyes were slightly wet. Had Dumbledore been _crying_? But why?!

"I'm sorry, Sir, I didn't mean to..." Harry stuttered, not sure what he was going to say.

"You have done nothing to be sorry about, Harry," Dumbledore stated quietly. "Quite the opposite, in fact. You have reminded me of something very important. And you have proven that, if the prophecy would still have applied, you would have indeed been the right person to conquer Lord Voldemort, because it's impossible to beat evil with more evil..."

It took a while for Harry to understand what Dumbledore meant with his cryptic statement. Well, as far as he knew the man was a genius, so it was all right with him if he was a bit... odd. Because there was nothing special about Harry wanting to bury a baby, was there?

"So this means we will hold a funeral the child?" he clarified.

"Yes, Harry. Yes, we will hold a funeral for the baby. I'm afraid we really cannot tell anyone, though, not even your friends."

"That's all right, Sir," Harry answered easily. He hadn't known what to tell Ron and Hermione anyway. He didn't want to reveal what had happened at Godric's Hollow. Harry still wasn't sure whether his and Ron's friendship would ever be the same again, and while he thought that Hermione would be more understanding about anything that had happened, they had only really become friends two months prior, and Harry wasn't prepared to make himself this vulnerable just yet.

Then, he remembered something else he had wanted to ask the headmaster ever since he had first mentioned it. "That 'prophecy', Sir," the scepticism was audible in his voice, "why did you think that it's no longer true? If it was a real prediction, shouldn't it be necessary for it to be fulfilled?"

"Ah, that's an interesting question, my boy," Dumbledore twinkled at him, "you see, divination is one of the most vague branches of magic that exists, and most genuine prophecies cannot be understood until after what they predict has come to pass. The one concerning you and Voldemort, though, is different. If Voldemort hadn't known about what he thought was the entire prophecy, it likely would never have been fulfilled. So rather than a typical prediction, it's more like something widely referred to as a 'self-fulfilling prophecy'."

Harry nodded. Yes, that sounded logically. He couldn't help but to feel angry at the unknown seer who had made the stupid prophecy that had resulted in the murder of his parents and him having to grow up with the Dursleys. If he ever met the one responsible for the whole disaster...

Perhaps their was a way to outlaw the making of predictions? He resolved on asking Hermione about it once she was back at Hogwarts. She was the most enthusiastic in their quest to find information about Nicolas Flamel, after all. In fact, from the way her eyes had gleamed when it became apparent that they needed to search the library in order to solve the riddle, Harry thought that his female friend was a bit too enthusiastic.  
>Perhaps Hogwarts should offer more extra-curricular activities for students like Hermione, so that less pupils stuck their nose in things that weren't any of their business or... or plain insane, like breeding dragons or trying to reinstate slavery.<p>

Well, but in cases like this, a friend like Hermione would come into handy. If they could find a way to legally ban prophecies, no other people would be murdered because of them.

"And now," Dumbledore continued, oblivious to Harry's plans, "it seems that just as Voldemort's mode of dealing with the prophecy, your actions have also influenced the truth content of it. Your scar is all but gone, Harry, this means your are no longer '_marked as his equal'. _I'm not sure whether you still have the power to destroy Voldemort once for all, but this doesn't matter. If you decided to fight the dark once your are old enough to do so, you are free to do so, no matter whether there is a prophecy or not. What matters is the fact that you are free to choose your path now, that Voldemort's ultimate demise does no longer depend on you and your life."

"When I stumbled upon the possibility to split ones soul through committing murder during my search for possible explanations why Voldemort had only been banished, but not killed, the night he came to your and your parents' house, I feared that something like this could have happened that night. That Voldemort had unintentionally made another one of these soul-fragments, and that you could be the container of it. I tried to convince myself that it was unlikely, that there was no mentioning whatsoever of a living being having ever served as a vessel of a piece of another person's soul, but nevertheless I resolved on keeping a close eye on you once you arrived at Hogwarts. I would never have dreamed of witnessing you defeating that part of Voldemort all on your own, though..." Dumbledore trailed off, all the while looking at Harry as if he had done something truly remarkable.

"Ehm, I haven't really done anything," Harry said, feeling uncomfortable. There was no reason for Dumbledore looking at him with pride, was there?

"Oh, but you have, Harry! Maybe you are not aware of it, but instead of the 'baby', it could have been you who had died just as easily."

"But you said that it was my mother's magic that protected me and killed the baby," Harry objected.

"But even your mother's magic couldn't have protected you against the evil of Voldemort if it hadn't been for your own desire to live. Having such a strong will only days after encountering the Mirror of Erised... you truly are a remarkable young man, Harry, and I'm very proud to be your guardian."

Harry blushed, not used to being praised.

Both man fell silent and Harry busied himself with shovelling the rest of his eggs into his mouth. He couldn't help but to think about what might have happened if he hadn't made the decision not to let anyone or anything kill him right before he had entered his parents' house, practically minutes before the baby had come out of his scar.

"What about... what about those other pieces of his soul?" Harry asked when Candy had already cleared the table. "Are there other people who have something like that baby in their head? And shouldn't we tell them?" Harry was quite sure that nobody could possibly want to have a creature like this inside his head.

"As far as I know, Voldemort made sure to store most of the fragments of his soul in inanimate objects, Harry. And normally, these fragments don't take on the form of a human child either. They aren't really corporeal, those pieces. You are, however, right in your assumption that the other splinters need to be taken care of. As the Department of Mysteries already is involved in the matter, I have agreed on sharing with them all the information I have acquired over the years so that they can launch an investigation."

"But why haven't you told them sooner?" Harry demanded. He couldn't believe that the headmaster had been this reckless.

Dumbledore looked guiltily and if Harry wasn't very much mistaken, his cheeks were slightly redder than they had been before. "I didn't think that it would be wise to let more people than absolutely necessary in on the secret of how Voldemort tried to gain immortality. I hoped that I would be able to track down and destroy the items myself. If life has told me one thing then that you have to be very careful about sharing your secrets..." he sighted and trailed off.

Harry desperately wanted to ask what his guardian meant with this mysterious statement, but somehow he had the feeling that Dumbledore didn't want to talk about whatever he was remembering. So he settled for just waiting for the man to continue.

"Anyway," the headmaster said once he noticed Harry's curious gaze, "when I spoke to Amelia – Madame Bones – and Mr Bode and Mr Croaker earlier, they were quite adamant about taking over the investigation. I have long since learned to pick my battles carefully and it would have been... unwise to incur the wrath of all three of them," he let out a quiet chuckle and Harry resolved on never getting on the bad side of those three magical policemen. If even Dumbledore feared them...

"We have made an agreement, however. I will share my knowledge with them and in turn, they will keep me informed about their progress and, more importantly, not let anyone else in on the secret without my consent. You have to understand one thing, Harry: Only because people work for the government it doesn't mean that they can be trusted. There are several upstanding members of our society that have quite a bit of influence on the Minister of Magic himself that allegedly severed Voldemort. Unfortunately, we can't prove it, otherwise, they would be in Azkaban – the wizarding prison," Dumbledore amended on Harry's enquiring look.

"Amelia Bones, though, is fiercely loyal to the light. She lost most of her family during the war, though of course, not as much as you, Harry."

"So they will search for the other soul-pieces and do something against them so that Voldemort no longer can use them to become immortal?"

"Yes, Harry, that's about right. You don't need to worry about what Voldemort did with his soul. Not any more."

* * *

><p>Harry spent most of the afternoon sleeping on the purple sofa in Dumbledore's – <em>their!<em> - living room, as he was still tired from yesterday' events. Somehow, getting the baby-like part of Voldemort out of his head had been more strenuous than Harry had first thought.

Later, he admired his now almost completely invisible, lightning-bold shaped scar in the huge mirror in the bathroom that was attached to his new bedroom – after his guardian had magically lowered the sink and the mirror, that was, so that even a tiny boy like Harry could reach it without resorting to a levitation spell. Dimly, he thought that he mustn't tell anyone about the fact that he had spent _10 minutes _in front of a mirror – he wasn't a girl! But then, a much more important thought occurred to Harry.

"Professor Dumbledore?" he called, almost running out of his room in his haste to find his guardian.

"I'm in my office, Harry," the voice of the headmaster came from the room with the turquoise door, Dumbledore's private office.

"Professor," Harry panted, not sparing the room a second sight, "since my scar is almost gone now, does this mean that it will no longer hurt when Professor Quirell looks at me?"

#

Naturally, this question rendered Dumbledore speechless for several seconds. When he had overcome the shock, Harry had to answer numerous questions about about the pain that had flared up in his scar repeatedly when Quirell had looked at him ever since the Welcoming Feast and whether the Defence against the Dark Art's Professor had behaved oddly around him. Of course, that last question was difficult to answer to, as Quirell acted strange most of the time.

Then, Dumbledore made Harry promise not to leave their quarters while he took care of the problem – whatever the problem was. Harry was quite sure that it must have something to do with Voldemort and the soul-splinters the man had created, but either Professor Dumbledore didn't want to tell Harry what was going on with the DADA Professor or the headmaster himself wasn't sure about what was wrong with him.

While his guardian was gone, Harry and Candy – whom Dumbledore had ordered to stay with Harry and to inform him immediately if the child needed him, much to Harry's dismay (he wasn't a baby) – shared recipes. The elf had been horrified to learn that her Master's adopted son (Harry beamed at that statement) had been forced to cook while staying with some freakish, unnatural relatives of him, and even worse, clean the house. Candy resolved there and then to never let little Master Harry clean his own bedroom, no matter what Master headmaster Sir had told her.

Half an hour later, the door that led down to Professor Dumbledore's office and the hall opened and in came Harry's guardian. Harry looked up expectantly. He wanted to know why the headmaster had been this bothered by a simple question!

When Dumbledore told him that Professor Quirell was no longer a professor but would soon be an inmate of Azkaban, Harry's eyes became huge. The headmaster had allowed such a dangerous man teaching children?!

Apparently, though, Harry wasn't the only one who was shocked by Dumbledore's lack of cautiousness when it came to choosing his employees. The Ministry had obviously decided to have a closer look into the running of Hogwarts and whether the aged headmaster was still up to the task of keeping several hundreds of children safe.

This resulted in Harry stopping to worry about Quirell immediately and only when his guardian assured him that no matter whether he would keep the position as headmaster or not, Harry would stay his ward, the boy calmed down again.

* * *

><p>It was only about three weeks later that the two Unspeakables from the Depart of Mysteries allowed Dumbledore to fetch the shell the Horcrux, that had resided in Harry's scar for the past ten years, had somehow acquired when leaving its former host.<p>

By now, the Christmas-holidays were over, Hermione had come back from her parents and school had resumed. Officially, Harry had moved back into Gryffindor tower, but every other night, he would sneak to his guardian's quarters – normally when he once again had had a nightmare.

The first time Ron had found Harry's bed empty, the boy had run out of Gryffindor tower in order to tell a Professor that Harry had gotten lost _again _without even bothering to change out of his pyjama. When Ron had found Harry sitting on his usual spot in the Great Hall having breakfast, he was of course relieved, but then some of the Slytherins had started to snicker because of his attire the relief turned into annoyance.

Harry had tried to apologize, had told Ron that he hadn't thought about the fact that the last time he hadn't slept in his bed, he had been lying in a cold room unconsciously, seriously hurt. Ron hadn't wanted to listen to his excuses, though, and then Harry had gotten mad because Ron didn't seem to understand that now that Harry finally had something akin to a family, he wanted to spend time with his new guardian.

Fortunately, this had been the day Hermione had returned and now the girl was trying her best to convince the boys to forget the whole incident and make up. And even though things were still quite tense between Harry and Ron, both of them were glad to have at least one friend back and grudgingly tolerated each other's presence, as neither was prepared to let the other one monopolize Hermione (and her homework) completely.

Being Hermione, the girl had of course noticed that Harry had been slipping away after dinner almost every night, and Harry, being proud of having a new guardian, had told her everything what had happened over the holidays.

Although, this wasn't entirely true. During their first whispered conversation in the library – where Hermione insisted on spending all of her free time since she had just missed two whole weeks of inhaling the knowledge Hogwarts' library offered – Harry didn't tell her about the Voldemort-baby that had lived in his scar ever since he had been little and how it had died when he had visited his parents' house, as he wasn't sure whether he was allowed to tell anyone what had happened in Godric's Hollow that night.

Later, when Dumbledore had praised him because of his thoughtfulness, Harry had decided that being thoughtful was a very good thing as his guardian's approval made Harry feel happier than he had ever felt during his time with the Dursleys. There, he had always tried to be a good boy, to show his relatives that he deserved praise and cuddles just as much as Dudley did, but no matter what he had done, his Aunt and his Uncle had just continued to (at best) ignore him.

And now Dumbledore was proud of him for not doing something rash? Well, Harry would certainly remember this. Perhaps some adults could be trusted on, after all. Perhaps it was indeed better to ask your guardian in order to make sure that you didn't do something completely stupid before running head-first into danger.

Of course, that didn't apply to things of minor importance like trying to tickle the giant squid or practising the new Quidditch-move Oliver had read about during the holidays. Stuff concerning Voldemort or whether it would be wise not to finish your potion-homework were a different matter, though...

But even though Harry couldn't tell his female friend _everything _that had happened during the holidays, she was much more understanding than Ron and was genuinely happy for Harry having found such a great guardian, who made sure that you knew where your parents where buried and who allowed you to wake him up in the middle of the night because of a nightmare.

It helped, of course, that it was thanks to said guardian that now they had a competent (if slightly mad) Defence against the Dark Arts Teacher. Professor Moody could be quite scary, but at least he seemed to know what he was talking about. After their first lesson with the ex-auror, Harry had the feeling that he had already learned more than during the entire last term and Hermione promptly started to adore the man.

So all things considered, Harry's life was much better than it had been before the Christmas-holidays. And even his estrangement from Ron had an unexpected positive side effect: For the first time since moving into the dormitory, Harry really registered the presence of the three other boys and the fact that those three could also be possible friends.

* * *

><p>Harry had suggested that they could bury the baby that had once been part of Lord Voldemort on the graveyard in Godric's Hollow. It just seemed fitting, since this being had only been created because of what had happened in the little villages ten years previously. Apart from this, Harry had learned that quite a few wizarding families buried their deceased relatives on this very graveyard, that even members of the Dumbledore-family had been laid to rest there.<p>

He and the Professor were practically family now and since the baby had lived in Harry's head for quite a long time it was sort of family, too, so surely it would be fitting to bury it on this very graveyard?

The headmaster had been impressed by Harry's reasoning, but pointed out that, if they wanted to make sure that nobody ever found out about the fact that they had buried a part of Lord Voldemort, Godric's Hollow wouldn't be a very wise choice.

Reluctantly, Harry agreed and so it was that on a rainy Sunday afternoon at the end of January, two figures – one tall, one quite small – could be found standing at the edge of a little war cemetery in the south-west of England.

On the ground in front of them was a little white coffin, decorated with red, yellow and blue flowers and dark-green ivy.

It had been the headmaster who had suggested burying Voldemort on a war cemetery might be fitting. It had been a war, after all, that had cost this fragment of soul its life.

When they had arrived, Dumbledore had immediately cast a Notice-me-not Charm on the two of them and then erected magical barriers that would prevent muggles and wizards alike from even coming close to this area of the graveyard. Only then the headmaster had made sure that no wizard had followed them.

Harry, fortunately, was too preoccupied admiring the lovely little coffin to really pay attention to what his guardian was doing. Burying a corporeal part of Lord Voldemort was more risky than Harry realized, and under normal circumstances, Dumbledore wouldn't have agreed to such a thing. But apart from the fact that it was really, really difficult to deny the child anything (it was probably a good thing that Dumbledore's ward didn't adore lemon drops as much as his guardian did – otherwise, he would have cavities before the month was over), the headmaster was a firm believer in the power of love.

Paying their last respect to a part of one of the darkest wizards that had ever existed – some might thought it strange, even disrespectful towards Harry's parents, who had died to protect their son from this very wizard. Dumbledore wasn't convinced that it would make a difference burying the creature instead of allowing Bode and Croaker to send it through the veil as they had originally planned, but he had seen how important it was for Harry. And he _was _the child that had, according to the prophecy, _'the power the Dark Lord knows not'_, after all.

Evil couldn't be conquered by evil, of that, the aged headmaster had been sure ever since his friend Gellert had forced him to choose between what was right and what was easy. So perhaps this was how it had always meant to be? Fighting the Dark Lord with the one power the wizard had never understood?

Feeling remorse was the only way to reconnect with the Horcruxes you had created, and Dumbledore knew that there was absolutely no chance that Voldemort would ever feel regret over what he had done. But now he and Harry – Harry especially, a boy who had suffered under the hand of Voldemort more than most – was showing his respect to one of the Horcruxes, made it clear that he understood that the splintered soul itself was a victim, a victim of the wizard who had decided to violate it.

If nothing else, it would make Voldemort furious if he ever returned and ever found out, and this thought alone was enough to make Dumbledore go along with Harry's wish. But there was the chance that it would do more, that Voldemort would at least be weakened by Harry's decision not to repay evil with evil.

"Now, Harry, would you like to say something?" Dumbledore asked his ward once he had magically dug a deep hole into the muddy soil.

"Uhm," Harry replied, thinking hard, "I really hope that wherever you are now you are happy, little baby. I don't mind that you lived in my scar, but I really think that's better that you are gone now. It was really unfair of Voldemort to hurt you, but I'm sure that living in my head was even worse than being completely dead. It must have been really boring, too, with me not knowing anything about magic at all and only doing chores for the Dursleys and going to primary school, while you probably already knew all kinds of curses and everything. And it's really great that we have a new DADA-teacher now and that my scar does no longer hurt during lessons. I promise to visit you really often, just like my parents, if Professor Dumbledore takes me, that is,"

Here, Harry raised his eyes from the coffin and cast a hopeful look at Dumbledore. The headmaster smiled at him and gave a tiny nod.

"Right," Harry continued," because it's really awful to be alone all of the time. And since you don't really have anybody else... I used to think that maybe if I died in an accident, the Dursleys would cry over my grave, too, realizing that they did love me and feeling very, very sorry for not showing me during my live. I don't think they would have cried, though, they would have probably been happy..." Harry swallowed. He hadn't really told his guardian about those thoughts yet, but from the way Dumbledore was eyeing him he could tell that the two of them would have a serious talk once they had returned to Hogwarts.

Well, this was all right, Harry assumed. It only showed that Dumbledore thought that he, Harry, was important. He grinned. Nobody had ever thought that he was important before.

"I will make sure that there will always be flowers on your grave, all for house-colours just like now, because Professor Dumbledore told me that you liked Hogwarts just as much as I do. So, now, rest well little baby, I really hope that you aren't mad at me because you had to leave my scar."

Dumbledore raised his wand and pointed it at the tiny casket, which rose into the air any then slowly down into the pit. Then, the professor bend down, took a handful of dirt and scattered it onto the white coffin. After a few moments, in which Dumbledore had stood in front of the grave, his head bent and hands folded, he retreated a few steps and allowed Harry to emulate his action.

Five minutes later, the two wizards were gone and nothing suggested that they had ever been here. The additional grave at the end of the very last row looked just like all he other sepulchres and the inscription on the headstone wouldn't draw any unwanted attention to this graveside either. Not even a wizard or witch would connect 'T. Riddle' with Lord Voldemort – the dark wizard himself had made sure of this.


	12. Epilogue

_I don't own Harry Potter_

_Well, here it is, the final chapter (or rather, the epilogue) of this little fic that turned out much longer than I originally intended it to be. I hope you liked it, and thank you very much for all followers, favourites and especially reviews!_

_I purposefully put a few vague suggestions in this epilogue, and everyone is free to make up his or her own mind on how Harry's and Albus' story might continue. I don't plan a sequel._

* * *

><p><strong>Epilogue<strong>

#

Dumbledore kept his promise and accompanied Harry to both his parents and Tom Riddle's grave at least once a month.

Shortly before the summer holidays were due to start Harry felt confident enough to invite Hermione to join him and his guardian to Godric's Hollow, and he would forever remember the expression of absolute bliss on her face when he told her that she could borrow any book she wanted from the Potter's collection.

Harry had been in his parent's house several times since the incident during the Christmas holidays and with Dumbledore's and Professor McGonagall's help repaired and cleaned up the premise, which had taken less time than he had thought. Unbeknownst to Harry, a fourth person had helped with the refurbishment, but Professor Snape had been very careful not to let anybody know that he visited the last home of Lily Potter nee Evans regularly ever since he had been given access to the property.

The house was really cosy now and Dumbledore had promised Harry that they would spend a few weeks of the summer break in Godric's Hollow.

Snape had been right, Harry now _was _glad that he had allowed the people from the Ministry making sure that nothing dangerous was left in his home. Otherwise, Dumbledore would hardly have agreed on using the house of Harry's parents as a second home.

During the holidays, Harry made the acquaintance of Bathilda Bagshot, a very nice, very old Lady who lived only a few houses down the road and apparently knew Dumbledore ever since he had been a little boy.

Harry was so busy listening to her stories about his guardian's life before even Harry's _parents _had been born that he hardly paid attention to the news that both the house of Draco Malfoy's parents and a vault in one of the deepest dungeons of Gringotts had been searched by a special force unit of the Department of Mysteries and that apparently, some very dark artefacts had been found.

One day, when Harry and his guardian were paying a visit to Florean Foretscue's Ice Cream Parlour, they met Neville and Harry invited the shy and quiet boy over to Godric's Hollow.

It was then that he learned about what had happened to Neville's parents – at least part of it, since his classmate wasn't comfortable talking about this particular subject. Harry resolved there and then on being a better friend to Neville. He, Harry, had at least a grave he could visit when he wanted to talk to his parents. It had to be ten times worse having to visit your parents locked away in a hospital, almost forgotten by the entire wizarding world (which was a sharp contrast to the adoration Lily and James Potter received even a decade after their demise), being neither here nor there.

Harry wondered what Neville would have seen if he had found the Mirror of Erised.

It still hurt thinking about the Mirror, but all things considered, Harry was very, very glad that he had found it (even though he could do without the faint scars that still littered his upper boy).

If he hadn't discovered the Mirror, Dumbledore would never have become his guardian, he wouldn't have been able to leave the Dursleys for good and he certainly wouldn't have gotten the best birthday-present ever: an album full of letters his parents had written to each other and their families, photos of his family, artwork Harry himself had created during the first 15 month of his life and several documents of the Potter-family that had once being lying on a table in the living room, some of them being decorated by colourful crayon.

#

**The End**


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